Not the Best Way to Counter Mistrust

[Catfight]

This story begins with rumors circulating around that George W. Bush had used taxpayer money to hire a public relations firm to somehow help sell the idea that tripling the rate of logging in the Sierra Nevada would be beneficial to the Sierra Nevada.

The Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, getting wind of such a potential abuse of government funds, filed an official Freedom of Information Act request to find out whether this was true.

Responding to the request as required by law, the Bush Administration avowed that no taxpayer funds were being used for any such public relations effort.

Then the head of the SNFPC got an anonymous package with documents in the mail.

It turns out, as the Bush Administration eventually admitted, that well over a hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer funds were indeed paid to a public relations firm, "OneWorld Communications," for exactly that purpose.

Among the tasks of OneWorld Communications in producing a video and promotional posters:

* Convince the public that triple-logging the Sierra Nevada forest would be good for the Sierra Nevada forest
* Counter "an apparent atmosphere of mistrust and cynicism about the government's real intentions"
* Counter the notion that the Bush Administration was acting "due to some hidden politically motivated agenda"

Mistrust about the government's real intentions? Hidden agendas? Rather than countering such suspicions, Bush's secret plan and illegal denial of its existence have done nothing but to fan those flames.

(Source: Associated Press March 10, 2004)

[UpInArms]

1. got link? ....eom

[gWbush is Mabus]

2. link?

[Moderator]

3. Your source is dated March 10th? Not LBN

Please repost in appropriate forum with correct link. Thank you.