PR WATCH

prwatch.org: War Is Sell

"From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August," White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. told the New York Times in September. Card was explaining what the Times characterized as a "meticulously planned strategy to persuade the public, the Congress, and the allies of the need to confront the threat from Saddam Hussein."

"We're getting the band together," said White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett in September. The "band," explained Newsweek's Martha Brant, refers to "the people who brought you the war in Afghanistan--or at least the accompanying public-relations campaign. ... Now they're back for a reunion tour on Iraq."
A group of young White House up-and-comers, the "band" was meeting daily on a morning conference call to plan media strategy with the aim of controlling "the message within the administration so no one--not even Vice President Dick Cheney--freelances on Iraq," Brant wrote.