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In late February, deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove, National Economics Council director Al Hubbard, and Barry Jackson, a special assistant to the president who is handling Social Security reform, met with administration-friendly lobbyists for a "rah-rah" cheerleading session on Social Security privatization. According to The Hill, representatives from the conservative 60 Plus Association, the business funded Coalition for the Modernization and Protection of America's Social Security(COMPASS), America’s Community Bankers, the National Retail Federation, the Mortgage Bankers Association and the Business Roundtable heard the trio reiterate George W. Bush's commitment to "reform" Social Security. "Karl Rove talked about its importance to the president's agenda, and Al Hubbard talked about its importance to the economy," a spokesperson from the Roundtable told Bloomberg News.

The tobacco industry won a big victory Friday when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in its favor, against the U.S. Justice Department. The court's ruling means that the Justice Department cannot force the industry to disgorge $280 billion in past profits, even if it wins its fraud and racketeering case against the cigarette makers.

Little media attention has been paid to this important decision in a landmark case concerning a major public health threat. The near-invisible nature of the ongoing federal trial to determine whether Big Tobacco engaged in a conspiracy of fraud and deceit may represent another aspect of that very conspiracy - the successful efforts of tobacco industry PR to influence journalists. Internal tobacco industry documents shed light on the largely hidden phenomena of corporate tobacco lobbyists courting favor with editorial boards.

"I hope that, as a result of our efforts, as a result of our helicopter pilots' being seen by the citizens of Indonesia helping them, that value system of ours will be reinforced," said Colin Powell, one week after the tsunami wrought havoc across South and Southeast Asia.

Thanks to PR Watch forums contributor "El Gringo" for calling our attention to a really atrocious example of dishonest propaganda. The graphic at right is by Linda Eddy, an artist for the website, IowaPresidentialWatch.com. Owned by Roger Hughes, chairman of the Republican Party in Hamilton County, Iowa, the website spent the recent U.S. presidential election calling Democratic candidate John Kerry a habitual liar and comparing him to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels -- which is awfully ironic in light of its own promotion of a big lie.

The image you see here might lead you to believe that the child in the picture has been made "glad" and secure thanks to the U.S. troop presence in Iraq. As "El Gringo" discovered, however, Lindy Eddy doctored the photograph. The original photo, taken by a journalist, depicted a young girl who had just received bullet wounds during a firefight in which her mother was killed and her father was wounded. Eddy doctored the photo by erasing the little girl's own face (which carries the listless expression you would expect from an injured child) and replacing it with someone else's face to make her look positively radiant and adoring.