How Do You Advertise an Oily Beach?

Escambia County commissioners bickered and snarled and traded accusations last night. Then they "approved spending $700,000 in BP funds for tourism advertising to get the word out nationally about the oil spill's impact on the beaches."

Jamie Page has the story ["Oil spill: Commission OKs spending $700K in BP funds on tourism"]

The money is to produce television commercials on the current state of local shores. The ads are to run in Pensacola's major metro feeder markets, such as Atlanta, Birmingham and New Orleans.

The real tourist entertainment was inside the commissioners' meeting.

On Monday, Commission Chairman Grover Robinson IV complained: "This ad campaign should have gone out last week and that money should have been spent. But now it has to have board approval because one member is creating a stink. It's crazy."

On Thursday, before the commission vote, Valentino lashed out at Robinson for putting the blame on him.

And so forth. The oil offshore has everyone on edge and looking for someone else to blame.

It's BP's fault, people! They had a plan to save walruses and sea lions, not the people and sea life of the Gulf Coast.

Seven hundred grand is a lot to throw away on Atlanta television stations, with Pensacola ad agencies taking their usual cut. We have to wonder if all that cash wouldn't be better spent by divvying it up among the beach businesses; particularly if it turns out the ads will be airing just as the oil inundates local beaches.

How do you advertise an oily beach? Bearing in mind the serious advice from the very un-serious "BPGlobal PR", what can you say?

"It isn't as bad as Louisiana?"
"Not as dumb as Mississippi?"
"BP tries to clean our beaches whenever it feels like it?"

Word has it the state of Florida is embarking on an ad campaign whose essential theme is, "Florida Beaches: Come see for yourself." That might attract coastal morphologists, biologists, and others in the scientific community. But they're already here, seeing for themselves.

What other kinds of tourists can we target?

• For beach weddings: "Our ministers bathe with soap regularly!"
  
• Families with children on limited vacation time: "For a great time, visit our beaches at low tide!"
• Reckless young people looking for a high time: "Tarballs: Mother Nature's answer to every addiction."

Who else? How about TV ads aimed at all of those "drill, baby, drill" delegates at the '08 Republican Convention? "Florida Beaches: Come get what you asked for."

Here's a hot promotional idea that will appeal to them: oil and violence!

The Stupidest F*cking Gal on the Planet

As everyone knows, Bush's former No. 3 in the Pentagon, Doug Feith, is the "stupidest f*cking guy on the planet." So says General Tommy Franks.

We now present the stupidest f*cking gal on the planet, Orlando's WFTV news reader, Barbara West:

Heating Up the Hate Machine

"We arrived back at the rooming house and were just about to run up the stairs when our attention was drawn to a small gathering in the landlord's front parlor."

Media Matters has a run-down on the "vitriolic and irrational" hate machine being heated up by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, and a lot of other bloviators. We've come to expect it of these nuts, unfortunately; but, truly, it defies reason why mainstream media outlets like the Washington Post, ABC News, and CNN also would offer them microphones and ink. The whole jibber-jabbering lot of them are no different from the landlady we had our first year living off-campus.

We had a taken a tiny room in the attic of a frame house about two miles from campus. Five other guys of wide ranging interests and abilities lived on the second floor. One was a pitcher for the university baseball team who went on to have a short, mediocre career in the minors. Another was finishing his Ph.D. dissertation; he would go on to be a college president. The rest were, well, just guys.

That fall semester, John Kennedy was running for president. One sunny afternoon, after a hard day napping in class and playing bridge at the student union, we arrived back at the rooming house and were just about to run up the stairs when our attention was drawn to a small gathering in the landlord's front parlor.

Almost a dozen mostly old people were sitting around the room. They looked rather stiff and formal. To all appearances they were having tea but not enjoying it one bit. They looked unhappy and, well, angry.

Stretched above the parlor entrance was a large linen banner embroidered with the words, "International Anti-Beef Eaters Convention."

Upstairs, all of our fellow roomers had gathered in the room directly above the downstairs parlor. They had been listening in through the heating ducts.

"Man, these people are cra-a-a-zeee-y!" the baseball pitcher said. "They've been talking about how if Kennedy gets elected he'll be sending all of the Fort Knox gold to the Pope in Rome."

"What's with the 'international' thing?" we asked.

The dissertation fellow shrugged. "It sounds like one couple down there is from Canada."

No one was able to figure out what the connection was between "anti-beef eaters" and anti-Catholicism. So, at the first opportunity a day or two later we asked the landlady.

"Beef weakens the mind," she said sternly, "and makes people Democrats."

Certainly, our landlady was no crazier than Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, or, for that matter, Charles Krauthammer. She just didn't have a microphone or a syndicated column. These days, she'd fit right in on the pages of the Washington Post or over the cable signal of Fox News.

Report the Smear

The Obama campaign has launched a new web site where those who are receiving them can report robocall, TV, email, and 3d class postal smears. "Fight the Smears" is the name of the site.

When you report the smear, you not only help the Obama campaign but democracy itself. It's time to stop the worms behind these baseless attacks.

McCain's Slide Into Slime

TPM has an "interactive map" cataloging by-the-state John McCain's descent into the deep slime of robocalls. 'Obama kills babies' ... 'Hollywood darling' ... 'terrorists' friend' ... etc. etc.

Apparently, McCain intends to crash this airplane, too.

The Ugliness, the Ugliness

Yes. What Greenwald says.

Joe the Phony Plumber from the Florida Panhandle

Looks like John McCain's game-changing latest "media darling," just like the other one, is an unqualified phony.

• He's not a licensed plumber
• He can't lawfully work under someone else's license
  
• He's never taken the required Ohio plumbing courses
• He never finished the required plumber's apprentice program
  
• His employer isn't licensed in Joe’s county
  
• He presently owes $1,182 in back taxes
• His last reported annual income was about $40,000
• Now, he's telling reporters he doesn't want any tax cuts from Obama
  
• Tax authorities long ago slapped a lien on his property
  
• He doesn’t appear to have the money to buy a business
  
• He's registered as Republican under another name
• He doesn't vote much

Here's the kicker: the Toledo Blade reports that he was reared and educated in the Florida panhandle. Who'd a thunk it?

News You Won't See on TV

You won't know this news if you depend on the cable so-called "news" channels:

[W]hat is most extraordinary about all of this is that huge numbers of Americas who were subjected to this propaganda by their own Government still don't know that they were, because the television networks which broadcast it to them refuse to tell them about it... .

You have to read about it to see how you've been played for a sucker. Even those of you who depend on NPR.

News You (Can't) Trust

"Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand":

Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.

Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley.

In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access.

A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis.

"It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,’" Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said.

Pentagon Prevarications

Scott Horton today has a medium long, verifiable, fact-filled, and compelling article on his Harper's blog -- supplemented by a personal experience he had as a lawyer in a recent case involving the Pentagon. The bottom line:

[N]ext time you see a report from Pentagon Public Affairs characterizing the reporting of a journalist or commenting on some question from a political debate, remember the source, and treat any words offered with suitable skepticism.