Journalists and politicians

trotted out the special language

earlier this month as the Los

Angeles Times caught Microsoft

trying to manipulate public

opinion - and, as a result,

government action - with a phony

ground swell of popular support.

"The elaborate plan, outlined in

confidential documents obtained

by the Times, hinges on a number

of unusual - some would say

unethical - tactics, including

the planting of articles,

letters to the editor and

opinion pieces to be

commissioned by top media

handlers but presented by local

firms as spontaneous

testimonials," the Times story

read.

Looking for reactions from the

politicians who were supposed to

be swayed by the Microsoft

campaign, the Times got a great

look-how-large-my-testicles-are

quote from an unnamed, though

swaggering, state attorney

general, and please do take a

moment to ponder the phenomenon

of elected officials talking

tough to the media while hiding

behind a curtain of anonymity.

"When it comes to knowledge of

computer technology, I take my

hat off to Mr. Gates," the AG

said. "But if he wants to enter

the field of political intrigue,

I say welcome to my world, Mr.

Gates, I'm ready to do battle."

Yeeaaaahhhhh, baby! Locked,

loaded, and ready to rock! You

the hard, cold man! Bring on the

smelly, skinny guy with the

glasses! (Note to unnamed

government lawyer: Get over

yourself.)

The Times report was an

important story, and Microsoft

is awfully sleazy for trying to

pull that kind of thing. But

careful readers couldn't help

catching a few small, troubling

contradictions in the 10 April

article. After the Times

reporters tagged the company's

plan as "unusual," for example,

it was interesting to note that

a politician who didn't mind

being named, the attorney

general of Michigan, Frank J.

Kelley, had this to say: "I've

been battling this type of PR

gimmickry for a long time, and I

can smell it 40 yards away. It

represents arrogance, and it's

personally demeaning to me. Bill

Gates would have been better off

if he or one of his

representatives had picked up

the phone and called me."

He can smell what from 40 yards

away? And he's been battling

this sort of thing for a long

time? But it's so unusual,

right? The Times story also

notes that, "The campaign

appears to have been drafted by

Rory Davenport, of Edelman

Public Relations (the PR firm

used by Microsoft), director of

'grass-roots and political

programs' in Washington." Pretty

specific title for a senior PR

executive running an unusual new

kind of public misinformation

campaign.

In fact, and pretty obviously,

Microsoft is the fish in the

cell block of massively

dishonest corporate PR; CEOs

across the country have to be

looking on in wonder as this

single company gets its fingers

slammed in a drawer for doing

the very same things that

thousands of business flacks do

to earn a paycheck every single

day, without consequences. And

politicians, who live by

drinking just this very blood

for breakfast, lunch, and

dinner, seven days a week -

attorneys general included -

really shouldn't be forgiven for

talking tough about something

scribbled into every page of

their daybooks. As the Times

report explains, "Sources close

to Microsoft said the proposed

campaign is an outgrowth of the

company's growing fears that it

is being outgunned in the media

by rivals and perhaps even

hostile state officials. One

stated goal of the campaign is

to counter 'negative, reactive

coverage that is driven by the

state attorneys general.'" Hey,

stop using manipulative and

self-serving PR against my

manipulative and self-serving

PR. Maybe the Times can catch

itself slinging a bit of

calculated bullshit designed to

look like spontaneous

testimonials, but probably not.

One of our favorite books on the

distortion of public dialog by

corporate PR peddlers is

actually kind of awful to read. Toxic

Sludge Is Good for You, a

detailed account of the PR

industry by longtime

public-relations watchdogs John

Stauber and Sheldon Rampton,

suffers from an excess of

detail: And here's a couple

hundred other ways that

corporate manipulation spreads

lies into the mainstream of our

cultural discussion without

leaving fingerprints. It's the

kind of book that you read while

jiggling your leg,

simultaneously furious and

exhausted.

Among the old, widely used,

way-too-common tactics that PR

firms use to manipulate the

public view of issues affecting

their corporate - and

governmental - clients, as the

Toxic Sludge authors

exhaustively explain, are games

like "astroturf" campaigns.

Designed to look like

grass-roots campaigns, community

efforts bubbling up out of

neighborhoods and groups of

people - environmentalists, for

example - with a common set of

concerns, these are organized

efforts to create front groups

with misleading names to hide

their real intentions. The group

that spontaneously banded

together in 1989 to kill a newly

proposed additional federal levy

on gasoline, Americans Against

Unfair Gas Taxes, was actually

set up by a PR firm paid by the

American Petroleum Institute -

which is itself funded with

corporate money from the oil

industry.

Once a phony front group is set

up and working, other tactics

come into play. Again, Stauber

and Rampton provide

nearly numbing descriptions.

Most intriguing is the

"patch-through," a telephone

boiler room operated by a PR

firm, usually using a phony

"Citizens for the Environment"