HeadlineUpdate

Armstrong Strong Arms

washingtonpost.com 
Firms Fear Backlash From Williams Case
Public Relations Industry Takes Offensive To Protect Lucrative Federal Contracts

By Christopher Lee and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 18, 2005; Page A15

PR firms have nothing to fear but fear itself. Or so they hope.  The Armstrong Williams “case” is more than a potential headache for the public relations industry. It’s a can of worms that won’t go away.  Although it’s quite possible that everything you know is wrong.

Public relations firms that are paid millions of dollars a year by the federal government to promote programs and policies are worried the money might dry up because of the Armstrong Williams flap at the Department of Education.

Worried?  Panic is a better word for what’s surging through the PR industry.  Government contracts are the anchor of a notoriously fickle business.  PR and ad agencies get fired almost as often as radio hosts and athletic coaches – but government contracts are a shelter in the storm. 

A deluge of government business in recent years has helped make Washington a growing market for public relations firms. To protect that market, PR executives are voicing their objections to that kind of deal, in which the commentator was paid to tout Bush administration education policy in television and radio appearances.

“In recent years,” in past years and in future years, as noted above.  How many PR agencies does it take to fill out a RFP?   Every last one of them.

Judith T. Phair, chief executive of the Public Relations Society of America, said in a statement that her organization "strongly objects to any paid endorsement that is presented as objective news coverage and is not fully disclosed. Such practices are clearly contrary to the PRSA Member Code of Ethics."

There’s many a slip ‘twixt the jaw and the law.  What constitutes a “paid endorsement” to most people might be Standard Operating Procedure to a PR person. Prepare yourself to be shocked:  news outlets frequently pursue stories that began with a news release paid for by a professional interest.  Sometimes, even, footage from a “video news release” is aired under the guise of home-grown coverage.  Or a soundbite you hear on the radio from a politician might have been “placed” with a news service.

I wonder if  Judith is related to Liz?

Louis Capozzi, chief executive of Manning Selvage & Lee, said federal contracts "are an important part of our firm's business and an important part of most large public relations firm's businesses. There are a lot of multimillion-dollar contracts out there."

A "lot" of contracts?  There is a lot of blue in the sky and also a big yellow ball. Here we see a classic example of formula journalism – get an “expert” to restate what the reporter is writing, to lend credibility and authenticity.  I’m not saying this is wrong, but maybe a little lazy.

PR shops have federal contracts to promote some of the government's most familiar programs. Manning Selvage & Lee, a New York-based unit of Publicis Group, for instance, is paid for a nationwide program that encourages preteens to become physically active and to help recruit soldiers for the U.S. Army and Army Reserve.

I’m assuming this graf was included to acknowledge that MS&L has a vested interest in this story.  Government contracts are like, um, opinions. Everyone has them.

PR executives do not want to see those government dollars disappear. And they should not, they argue, because two industry ethics codes forbid paying journalists to advocate a point of view on news programs. They say such infractions are rare.

Ethics codes?  We don’t need no stinking ethics codes. While it’s true that every PR agency would discourage a client from trying to get a commercial endorsement from, say, Peter Jennings, that is not what the Armstrong Williams case is about. Paying a news reporter to take a position is wrong.  Buying ad time on a pundit's show and then expecting a little bit more for your investment is considered a gray area.

That is the sort of deal that the Education Department, through a contract with Ketchum Inc., had with Williams, a conservative black commentator who is a frequent guest on CNN and has his own syndicated radio show.

Right – he’s a commentator.  By definition, he has strongly held views.  But this doesn’t let him off the hook.

Williams was paid $240,000 to promote President Bush's No Child Left Behind law and did not disclose the contract when talking about the law during cable television appearances or writing about it in his newspaper column. He has acknowledged "bad judgment" but has declined to return the money.

Pardon my “bad judgment” Mrs. Lincoln, said Booth.  Pardon mine too, said Martha.  And me to-Oh, thanks, Gerry.

"The idea of paying a journalist to make a statement for a client is misleading at best, if not downright deceptive," said Stanley Collender, general manager of Financial Dynamics in the District. "I wouldn't do it."

Somebody google this guy.  He’s had a bunch of different jobs in and out of government and is almost as quotable as the King.  Notice his expert application of the “Hail Me” pass in which the source’s lofty and quotable pronouncement just happens to cover themselves in glory. “I wouldn’t do it” he says.  But insert the word “for” between “paying” and “ a journalist” and see if he denies that one.  If a news release, press conference or three martini lunch brings about a story, is that deception? 

"Our business is much more ethical than that," Capozzi said. "I'd hate to see our profession tarred by this brush."

Good quote – “our” “ethical” business shouldn’t be “tarred.”  On one side, the warm, friendly PR profession, on the other, vicious liars.

Already, however, the industry is caught in the sort of political firestorm that one of its member firms might typically help a client in crisis deal with.

Cute.  That was just a moment of levity, I guess.  Or irony.

The Williams controversy was magnified by earlier revelations that the Education Department had paid Ketchum to rate journalists on how positively or negatively they reported on No Child Left Behind and to produce a video news release on the law that was used by some TV stations as if it were real news.

OK, now we’re rolling.  Here is the part I’d underline on the blackboard. 

It’s almost impossible to measure the effect of public relations.  You can “count clips,” conduct endless focus groups or rate coverage by journalist or media outlet, but none of that can truly measure shifts in attitudes, habits or consciousness.  The big picture is still dependent on intuition, instinct and luck.

As for video news releases (VNRs) consider this.  Unless you live in New York or Los Angeles, the odds are that when a  Hollywood star appears on the local news in an “interview” with the station’s reviewer, odds are the footage was paid for by a studio.  Politicians, corporations and charities do the same thing.  Are you shocked?

Other government agencies, including the Census Bureau, the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Department of Health and Human Services, have distributed such prepackaged videos, a practice that congressional auditors have described as illegal propaganda in some cases.

Here’s one of the personal experiences I’ve had with this issue.  You tell me if it was unethical, I can take it.

My father was a PR consultant who was hired to pave the way for the introduction of the first smoking cessation method using nicotine replacement –Nicorette, the nicotine gum.  Big tobacco got scared when we started publishing a smoking cessation newsletter for health professionals, among other actions.

A drug company’s money helped fund a global conference on nicotine replacement therapy, which at the time was unknown here.  Government researchers and health policy makers attended.  No product name was mentioned, just science.  VNRs were prepared that promoted the idea of working with a doctor to help quit smoking. Stations ran them as news.  Newspapers ran press releases as articles, with only a few words changed. 

Were we guilty of “illegal propaganda?”  If so, take a good luck at your newspaper today.  You can find the touch of pros like me in just about every story.  Ask yourself, who is benefiting from this article? Who is quoted, who supplied the architecture of this narrative.  Here’s a reform for papers trying to sell their internet editions:  promise full disclosure to your readers by posting the press releases that informed a story alongside  the text.

The news about the Williams deal, coming on top of the other incidents, triggered a slew of accusations and investigations last week. Michael K. Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, ordered an investigation Friday into whether Williams broke laws against payola by not disclosing the contract in his broadcast appearances.

Powell waited too long before he took action.  First rule of scandal – get the truth out, get it out early, and get it out yourself. The reference to payola could be a mark of the standard this affront will be asked to meet – the famous pay for play radio scandals of the 1950s.

Two Senate Democrats, Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota and Ron Wyden of Oregon, asked the Government Accountability Office Friday to determine whether the Williams contract violated a ban on the use of government money for propaganda, and whether other agencies had struck similar deals with journalists, commentators or talk-show hosts.

Does anyone remember back when the Government Accountability Office was called the General Accounting Office? I’m sure someone did a focus group, someone else crunched some numbers, and with much fanfare the proposition was put forth that Americans like “accountability” more than they liked accountants.

Their request followed one Tuesday by seven House Democrats, who asked Comptroller General David M. Walker to examine all federal departments' contracts with PR firms and media organizations, including an assessment of whether they violate the propaganda ban.

"The federal use of covert propaganda is unethical, damaging to our democracy and open society, and, as you know, illegal," wrote the lawmakers, led by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). ". . . [I]t would be abhorrent to our system of government if these incidents were part of a pattern of covert propaganda funded with taxpayer dollars."

I happen to like the word, “propaganda.”  I define it as targeted communication to influence behavior.  The target could be negative (hate your neighbor) or positive (love your neighbor, or at least vote for him).  Covert propaganda is another word for advertising.

A Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Wednesday asked Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige to turn over records concerning the payments to Williams. The panel also asked for information about any similar arrangements between 2002 and 2004. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has said that he plans to introduce legislation requiring federal agencies to report their advertising spending to Congress and to disclose their role in producing ads.

Democrats in Congress can do little more these days than hold hearings, demand investigations and stir up sound and fury destined to signify not very much under Republican rule.

Senator Harkin is one of my favorite Democrats, but if he thinks ad agencies can’t hide waste, fraud and abuse in a simple budget he perhaps thinks McDonald’s is popular because of its food.

Paige defended the contract as a standard "outreach effort" to minority groups, maintaining that the money "went exclusively" to the production of advertisements. He said the department's inspector general would investigate the matter.

That’s what it said on the budget – “outreach.”  Readers are invited to submit their favorite budget euphemisms for questionable expenditures. “Travel” and “Administrative” are too obvious to be accepted by the judges.

Despite the recent flaps over Williams and prepackaged videos, other federal contracts with PR firms are more typical, agency officials and industry executives said.

PR firms have been paid to push the introduction of the "golden dollar," to urge teenagers not to use illicit drugs, and make the public feel comfortable with the country's new, colored currency.

The “golden dollar?”  Did I miss something?  Are we talking William Jennings Bryan here?  Or is this just another iteration of the earlier theme that PR is OK.  Never mind a few bad apples, or strong-arming techniques, you can trust the people who are lying to you.

Government agencies have also turned to the PR industry to help manage crises, such as when the U.S. Postal Service hired Burson-Marsteller in 2001 to help deal with a crush of media calls in the aftermath of the anthrax attacks. Five postal staffers had been fielding as many as 400 calls a day, said Gerry McKiernan, a postal spokesman.

Anthrax?  Are we saying now it’s unpatriotic to question Uncle Sam’s need for a helping hand from the hidden hand?

"Exhaustion begins to set in, and there was a need for someone outside of our immediate sphere to be helping us with strategic thinking," McKiernan said. "When should we have that press briefing? Is the information we're giving out being received? Do we need more detail? We needed someone . . . to just give us some guidance."

No, what you need is someone to blame when your boss says, “whose dumb idea was that?”  An expert is someone to take the fall.

Ketchum, the firm at the center of the Williams storm, announced last week it had begun a review of its federal contracts and has retained an outside firm to recommend ways to increase the transparency of those contracts. A company spokeswoman declined further comment, referring questions to the Education Department.

A classic defense.  Appoint a respected commission or auditor (George Mitchell, Paul Volcker, God) and make sure they take a good long time to make their recommendations. 

Media organizations and advocacy groups have launched their own reviews. They have filed dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests with federal agencies seeking information about their contracts with Ketchum and other PR firms.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group that has filed FOIA requests with 22 agencies, said it is unlikely that the Williams deal was the only one of its kind.

"If the government wants to tell us something, then the government should just tell us," Sloan said. "They can't pretend that . . . some objective third party is telling us something. Because, in fact, it's the government, and that's propaganda."

Propaganda?  Or public relations?  Armstrong Williams may be a fool, but his greed shouldn’t put a stop to government using professional public relations services.  Deceit is a no-no, but I say yes to honest communication.  Mark Twain said it best:  “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”

Turn Your Back on Bush -- A Headline Update Update

We were worried for the organizers of the clever, original and witty "Turn Your Back on Bush" protest.  Those Bushies are not known for their sense of humor. Would the protesters be frog-marched across the Potomac and made to form human pyramids at the Iwo Jima Memorial?  Here's a report from the front lines...

I thought this was a pretty good answer to the question, how the heck do you get attention after all the protests, marches, Earth Days and global telethons?  Suggestions, anyone?

The Right 2004 Election Conspiracy Theory

Usually we have to read between the lines to find the truth in a news story, but in this case it's best to read the last line first.

washingtonpost.com 
Report Acknowledges Inaccuracies in 2004 Exit Polls

By Richard Morin and Claudia Deane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, January 20, 2005; Page A06

Interviewing for the 2004 exit polls was the most inaccurate of any in the past five presidential elections as procedural problems compounded by the refusal of large numbers of Republican voters to be surveyed led to inflated estimates of support for John F. Kerry, according to a report released yesterday by the research firms responsible for the flawed surveys.

I’m no conspiracy theorist (though I’ve worked for plenty) but I have to pause at this carefully placed propaganda.  A short article on page 6 about what internet chatter is treating as a major scandal hardly seems like aggressive reporting, especially in this story.  I’ve never seen a worse example of burying the lead.  In this story, it’s in the last sentence.

The exit pollsters emphasized that the flaws did not produce a single incorrect projection of the winner in a state on election night. But "there were 26 states in which the estimates produced by the exit poll data overstated the vote for John Kerry . . . and there were four states in which the exit poll estimates overstated the vote for George W. Bush," said Joe Lenski of Edison Media Research and Warren Mitofsky of Mitofsky International.

Not a single incorrect prediction – well, congratulations!  But wasn’t this the election where the needle moved hardly at all (hello New Hampshire) as practically all the states that went red or blue last time did the same thing this time?  All this, but no suprises?

The polling firms presented their findings in a much-anticipated report to the sponsors of the Election Day surveys, a consortium of news organizations that includes ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN and the Associated Press.

Throughout election night, the national exit poll showed the Massachusetts senator leading President Bush by 51 percent to 48 percent. But when all the votes were counted, it was Bush who won by slightly less than three percentage points. Larger discrepancies between the exit poll estimates and the actual vote were found in exit polls conducted in several states. At the request of the media sponsors, Mitofsky and Lenski are continuing to examine exit polling in Ohio and Pennsylvania, two critical battleground states where the poll results were off.

Return now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, or at least a few months ago.  Election Night and the news anchors are squirming.  Bob Schieffer says on CBS, Dan, we’ve been here all night and so far every state is going the same way it did four years ago.  Meanwhile, while the world waits for Ohio, exit polls show a result that ends up being completely, totally wrong.  Why sugarcoat the exit poll debacle? Because the media remains invested in them.  Exit polls are a way to be first to the finish line, and no media outlet wants to be second.

The differences between the final exit poll results and the vote count revived criticisms of the exit polls fueled by consecutive election-night debacles in 2000 and 2002. They also fueled assertions that the exit poll results were accurate and that it was the vote count that was flawed or deliberately manipulated to deliver the election to Bush.

When were exit polls not a debacle?  Probably during those close, nail-biting elections of 1984 and 1996, when exit polls boldly announced re-election victories for popular presidents.  Four years ago, we heard similar charges.

The analysis found no evidence of fraud resulting from the rigging of voting equipment, a contention made repeatedly by those who question the 2004 vote.

I got a lot of those internet messages about voting fraud, Diebold machines and the Trilateral Commission (Ok, I made that last one up) but I didn’t put  much stock in them.  I’m sure there were problems, even some skullduggery, in Ohio, but not 60,000 votes worth.  Now, suspicious minds might want to go back to a story that was reported after the election, and which is the real truth here.  As I said before, you’re going to have to wait before you read it in this article.

Lenski and Mitofsky compared the exit-polling results with the final vote tally in 1,460 precincts where interviews were conducted and vote returns were available.

"Our investigation of the differences between the exit poll estimates and the actual vote count point to one primary reason: in a number of precincts a higher than average within-precinct error most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters. . . . While the size of the average exit poll error has varied [in past elections], it was higher in 2004 than in previous years for which we have data," Lenski and Mitofsky wrote.

In other words, we reported that Kerry was winning, but he ended up losing, except more people told us Kerry was winning, so what we reported was still true, only it was false.  We were for it before we were against it.

But they acknowledged in the report that they remain at a loss to explain precisely why Bush supporters, or Republicans generally, were more likely to refuse to be interviewed than Kerry voters.

Hold it.  Could we have some documentary evidence that Bush supporters hid their light under a bushel while Kerry people were more talkative? How widespread was this phenomenon?  Some first person accounts of voters running screaming into their BMWs as exit pollers chase them with clipboards?

Their investigation identified other factors that contributed to errors in the 2004 exit polls. Interviewing in precincts where polltakers were required to stand farther away from the polls were less accurate than those where interviewers had easier access to voters leaving the polling places. Poor weather conditions also pushed down cooperation rates. They suspected that there were more young people working as interviewers in 2004, which they said was another potential source of error.

Stop the presses.  Here are some interesting new ideas which the reporters opt to save for the next to the last graf (which, remember, contains the deeply buried essential truth).  How many polltakers were standing how far away?  Is there data to support this?  And how about some more about this “it’s the kids’ fault” argument?  Were the college kids in Phish T-shirts genetically inclined to seek out similar life forms?

Adding to the confusion, programming errors were discovered and corrected in the afternoon of Election Day, and a technical problem severely disrupted access to the system for nearly two hours late on election night.

Aha!  Boing!  Finally we get the truth that readers of Slate and other sources started hearing about within 48 hours of the election. This lead is buried deeper than Jimmy Hoffa.  Bereft of life, this story has run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.  If you want to run after a juicy conspiracy theory, focus on the mysteriously timed computer glitch, which kept fresh information about the exit polls from the networks during the peak viewing hours of election night.  Who was served by rumors that Bush was behind? Somebody subpoena Roger Ailes please. 

Inaugural Edition

The inauguration presents protesters with some logistical problems. First, how to they avoid being treated like Iraqi detainees?  My advice would be to protest only around TV cameras whose little red lights are on. 

Personal safety aside, the biggest question is what can you co to make a difference, even a microscopic one?  This group may have the answer. 

Their idea is to stand along the parade route and at a prearranged signal, turn their backs (not as some have suggested, their backsides) on Bush.  I'm sure the Bushies will try and make this impossible, or ship the organizers out to Guantanamo for questioning, but you have to admit it's a decent answer to the question, what kind of public protest makes a difference anymore?

When Martin Luther King marched on Washington, it was a huge deal.  The mobilization against the Vietnam War and the early Earth Days showed the power of people marching.  But that power diminishes with every decade filled with more public protest.  New ideas like Hands Across America (remember that one?) turn out to be schemes to build a database.

So I like the civility of just turning one's back on an offensive charachter. In fact, I invented this protest back in 1988.

I was with a group of friends at the inaugural of George H. W. Bush.  A few minutes into his speech I said to my group, "I've had it with this guy.  I'm going to stand up, turn my back, walk out of here and not look back."

And so I did.  Now some like-minded souls are taking this notion to a much larger level.  Hopefully they won't end up in jail. Tune in tomorrow.

Quadrennial Mush from the Post

Political Divisions Persist After Election
Nation Unsure, Hopeful About Bush, Poll Finds

By Richard Morin and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 18, 2005; Page A01

What do you do if you’re an editor of a major newspaper that has covered so many presidential inaugurations you’re out of story ideas?  Just take a quadrennial headline off the shelf and dust it off or a new century. I believe the Post first ran the “Nation Unsure, Hopeful” line during the Lincoln Administration.  Can someone with Nexis please look that one up?

President Bush will begin his second term in office without a clear mandate to lead the nation, with strong disapproval of his policies in Iraq and with the public both hopeful and dubious about his leadership on the issues that will dominate his agenda, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Fasten your seatbelts, this is going to be a bumpy ride.  A news story should lead with an expository sentence, if not the classic “who, what, when, where and why.”  Or, is it better to just load up the first graf with a whole bunch of clichés?  Frankly, I’m dubious…

On the eve of Thursday's presidential inaugural ceremonies, the survey found few signs that the country has begun to come together since Bush defeated Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) two months ago.

What kind of signs are they looking for?  Mass defections of Democrats, Armstrong Williams being elected mayor of Washington, DC?

The president has claimed a mandate from the election, but the poll found as much division today as four years ago over the question of whether Bush or Democrats in Congress should set the direction for the country.

You mean the people who voted for Bush want him to lead, and the people who didn’t don’t?  I am so glad I read the newspaper today, I might have missed this stunning new idea.

Fewer than half of those interviewed -- 45 percent -- said they preferred that the country go in the direction that Bush wanted to lead it, whereas 39 percent said Democrats should lead the way. During the first months of his presidency, after the bitterly disputed 2000 election, Americans said they preferred Bush to take the lead by 46 percent to 36 percent.

See above.  Also note the inference that the country is split along similar lines as it was four years ago.  Again, this is news?

But the public also wants cooperation from the Democrats. At a time when Democratic leaders are preparing to challenge many of Bush's major initiatives, nearly seven in 10 Americans agree that Bush's victory means that congressional Democrats should compromise with him -- even if it means compromising on their party's principles. Only one in four said Democrats must not compromise on things they find objectionable, even if it means less gets accomplished.

A word here about partisanship.  Despite what you may have heard, there isn’t a partisan clash in this country, it’s more of a partisan vacuum. Veteran Washington reporter David Broder, wrote in the 70s that “the party’s over.”  For thirty years, the  debate has raged   over whether Broder was right then or is right now.  Like the major TV networks, the political parties often seem like dinosaurs on the brink of extinction. Compromise used to be a dirty word – even “moderation” was “no virtue” to Barry Goldwater.  Now, as partisan edges blur, the sharpness of our differences get smoothed over.  But they’re still there.

Now, take a look at the actual question (#7) the Post used to measure the popularity of “compromise.”  It’s so long it requires special tailoring.  By the time the pollster is finished reading this question, the voter is either asleep or desperate to move on.  Next time you see a 27 question survey like this, try reading it aloud.  See how long it takes before you'll answer yes to anything.

Looking ahead, a majority of Americans -- 55 percent -- said they expect Bush to do a better job as president in the next four years than he did during his first term. That is about equal to the proportion in January 1997 that expected President Bill Clinton's second term to be better than his first.

In case you didn’t get it the first two times, here’s the point of this story again:  same old same old.

On Social Security, the poll offered mixed findings that underscore the enormous challenge facing Bush at the start of what both parties see as the most significant legislative battle of the second term.

For every instance where a reporter uses words like “enormous challenge” or “uphill fight” read “hopeless cause.”

Those surveyed gave Bush negative marks -- 38 percent approval vs. 55 percent disapproval -- for his handling of the Social Security issue, and three in five said the system will not have enough money to pay benefits by the time they retire.

Republicans don’t get how important Social Security is because it’s not all that important to them.  How many people does George Bush know who are living on Social Security?  Most taxpayers are worried about the future, and making Social Security less secure doesn’t appeal to them.

But by 54 percent to 41 percent, the public supported a plan that would include a reduction in the rate of growth of guaranteed benefits and private savings accounts financed with a portion of payroll taxes. A proposal with those elements is under consideration by the Bush administration.

Lesson #2 in how to read between the lines of polls:  how you phrase the question will influence the results.  This why Democrats like to attack Republicans for “cuts” that Republicans prefer to call “savings.”  Remember that old Saturday Night Live sketch where Chevy Chase played a PR flack at Three Mile Island?  Instead of calling the near meltdown an “accident,” his character urged, let’s call it a “surprise.”

Other polls have shown sizable opposition when the Bush plan is described as cutting future benefits, and the varying results among surveys suggest that the communications battle to frame the problem and the solutions may prove crucial to the outcome, as was the case in the fight over Clinton's health care plan in 1993 and 1994 and the battle to reduce the rate of growth in Medicare spending, which cost Republicans after they won control of Congress in 1994.

In case you were falling asleep amid all these numbers, and I know I was, here’s some references to earlier dramas to keep things lively. “Where’s the conflict,” editors and Hollywood producers like to ask. If this story could have mentioned Monica Lewinsky, you know it would have.

But Iraq and terrorism, more than Social Security, are the issues the public wants Bush to concentrate on in his second term. The poll found that Americans rank Iraq and the war on terrorism as the top priorities for Bush and Congress. More than six in 10 Americans rate the situation in Iraq as the highest priority for Bush and Congress in the coming year, and more than half say the war on terrorism also must be a top priority.

Yes, we know. Americans are worried about terrorism.  Some would say that the Bush team has capitalized on these fears –actually as this hilarious video from the Republican Convention shows, they were pretty blatant about it.

No other issue, including the economy, education, health care and Social Security, is viewed by a majority of the public as equally pressing.

Hey Bush, are you listening?  The Washington Post says you shouldn’t count on winning your Social Security plan.

Bush said in an interview last week with The Washington Post that the 2004 election was a moment of accountability for the decisions he has made in Iraq, but the poll found that 58 percent disapprove of his handling of the situation to 40 percent who approve, and 44 percent said the war was worth fighting.

Subtext alert!  Danger!  Warning! 
Have you noticed how often the press has referred to Bush’s “accountability moment” phrase?  I’m as liberal as the next guy, if not more so, but even I can recognize it when the media puts its fingers in its ears, blows a raspberry and taunts “Dummy Dummy!”

The survey also found that, although Americans overwhelmingly oppose delaying the upcoming elections in Iraq, scheduled for Jan. 30, they are pessimistic that the vote will produce a stable government. Nearly six in 10 said it will not bring a stable government, but 57 percent said they see the elections as a step to the day that U.S. troops can be withdrawn from the country.

Here’s a statistic I just made up but let’s consider it as read:  the more you poll, the more pessimistic people become. 

The president's overall job approval rating stands at 52 percent, up slightly in the past month. Of all presidents in the postwar era who won reelection, only Richard M. Nixon had a lower job approval rating at the start of his second term. The other chief executives began their second term with job ratings of 60 percent or higher.

Again, I don’t hold much to this notion of a liberal bias in the media, but this is just more of the Post saying, let’s take this Bush guy down a peg.

A majority of Americans express disapproval of Bush on other key measures of presidential performance. A slight majority -- 52 percent -- disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy, and half or more also are dissatisfied with the way Bush has dealt with the budget deficit (58 percent disapprove), immigration (54 percent) and health care (51 percent).

Ibid op cit and Bob’s your uncle. Post to Bush:  No Mandate, Buster

Bush gets higher marks on the key issue of terrorism, where a 61 percent majority approve of the job he is doing, up eight points in the past month. And 56 percent expressed satisfaction with his education policies. The public is divided on the president's handling of environmental issues, foreign affairs and taxes.

Al Sharpton got it right when he asked during one of the presidential debates:  “What’s Bush’s platform? Be thankful you’re alive?” As long as airplanes aren’t flying into buildings today, Bush gets the benefit of the doubt.

Expectations are high for Bush as he begins his second term. Seven in 10 say they expect him to make major progress against terrorism. Smaller majorities also expect the president to move forward on the economy, Iraq, education, limiting medical and class-action lawsuits, and taxes.

But on other issues, the public is more pessimistic. Slightly fewer than half said they expect Bush to make substantial progress on Social Security (46 percent) and health care (48 percent). And even fewer expect major successes by Bush on such issues as the environment (32 percent), the deficit (35 percent) and immigration (39 percent).

OK, that’s it. Game over.  This article is really about pessimism, I’m afraid to say.  Post to Us:  We’re pessimists.

The complex political challenges facing Bush and congressional Democrats can be seen in public attitudes on two issues that are emerging as the cornerstones of Bush's domestic agenda: Social Security and limiting medical malpractice and class-action lawsuits.

I thought you said Social Security wasn’t all that important?

Overall, the public expresses more confidence in Democrats in Congress (50 percent) than in the Bush administration (37 percent) to deal with problems in the Social Security system. But another picture emerges when the public is asked to evaluate specific reform proposals under consideration by the Bush administration.

Americans divide equally over Bush's proposal to index Social Security benefits for future retirees to increases in the cost of living rather than to wage growth as is now the case, a change that would effectively mean benefits would be lower than currently projected. A clear majority of Americans -- 55 percent -- support the president's proposal to allow younger workers to put some of their Social Security savings into stocks or bonds. When packaged together, the two components draw the support of 54 percent of those surveyed.

I’ve resisted this quote until now, but it’s time to bring out that old chestnut often attributed to Mark Twain –There are lies, damn lies and statistics. When it gets down to a vote in Congress, see how popular lowering benefits will be.

The survey suggests that Democratic leaders may be out of step with their rank and file on the severity of the problems facing Social Security. Those leaders are attempting to thwart Bush's plans by saying there is no immediate crisis. But two-thirds of all Democrats said they worry that there is not enough money to keep Social Security funded until they retire.

They may be out of step, or they may end up leading the parade. If your morning newspaper were your breakfast, equivocal paragraphs like this one would turn it to mush.

The public is pessimistic about reducing partisanship in Bush's second term. Two in three Americans say Bush will not make progress on that front, but the subject ranks low on the public's list of second-term priorities.

See!  It’s pessimism, stupid.

A total of 1,007 randomly selected adults were interviewed Jan. 12 to 16 for this survey. Margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus three percentage points.

I feel like I’m minus some IQ points after this.

"This is your Brain on Politics"

An op-ed in the New York Times follows up on a story the paper wrote about on page one last year. I just had to comment on the idea of using MRI machines to see how the brains of Democrats and Republicans responded to political messages.  I wrote about their conclusion that  Democrats had more activity in the "amygdala" or the part of the brain that responds to emotion while Republicans showed a spike in the "gimmydala" or the part that deals with money. That joke didn't make it past my editor at the Christian Science Monitor, so please insert it here.