PROPAGANDA WATCH

Reuters: STAYING ON MESSAGE

As it prepares for war with Iraq, the new White House Office of
Global Communications (OGC) is "revving up a global effort to
defuse its image as arrogant and overbearing," reports Randall
Mikkelsen. The State Department is creating an Islamic media center
in London to manage U.S. communications with the al Jazeera
satellite television network. The OGC is also organizing "daily
telephone conference calls to coordinate foreign policy messages
among U.S. government agencies and representatives of British Prime
Minister Tony Blair. This is supplemented by a 'Global Messenger'
e-mail of talking points sent almost daily to administration
officials, U.S. embassies, Congress and others." The Bush
administration's effort to overcome its arrogant image suffered a
blow recently when Europeans responded negatively to Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's dismissal of French and German
opposition to U.S. war talk as an example of "old Europe" out of
touch with the world.