Charles Steele, Jr., president of the SCLC, wrote an editorial which ran in several southern newspapers. The editorial was against upcoming legislation that would limit credit card fees—a bill favored by retailers (which would save money) but not by credit card companies (which would lose money in fees).

Here's the problem: Steele didn't write the editorial. A PR firm working for the credit card companies contracted a third party to write it, and it somehow got submitted to the papers without getting approved by Steele.

Fucked up, right? It's obviously a huge mistake by the PR firm. It makes the papers look foolish for running an editorial that the "author" hadn't even seen. And, of course, nobody wants to wake up one day and read something in the paper with their name on it that they've never seen.

But Steele and the SCLC aren't heroic in this. Check out their main complaint:

The [editorial that ran] reads: "The proposed law would boost the profits of Wal-Mart, J.C. Penney and Home Depot, but it would take money out of the pockets of the small businesses and consumers it's supposed to help."

Wal-Mart is listed on the SCLC's Web site as a sponsor of the organization. No one at the SCLC would want to insult a large benefactor.

It's not that the SCLC is too preoccupied with real civil rights issues; they're obviously known as a group-for-hire that various lobbies can sign on to support their various causes, in order to give them a sheen of support from the civil rights community. It's just that they didn't want to piss off Wal-Mart.

Let freedom ring.

[WP]

The current bill in Congress would ban "flavored" cigarettes, but exempt menthols. The Black Caucus is an important player because they stand for the black community—the most enthusiastic consumers of menthols—and they've been wooed big time by tobacco companies.

Philip Morris over the years has been one of the biggest contributors to the caucus’s nonprofit Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. That financial support, in some years exceeding $250,000, and lesser amounts at times from other cigarette makers, has been the reason some critics perceived an alliance between big tobacco and African-American members of Congress, some of whom were willing to help fend off antitobacco efforts.

Among them, some critics have said, was Charles B. Rangel of New York. Although he supported some antitobacco initiatives, until the last few years Mr. Rangel staunchly opposed federal tobacco tax increases. He has said his stand was based on the disproportionate effect of excise taxes on the poor, not the thousands of dollars he received in tobacco industry political action committee donations.

Way to use logic in order to help your constituents into an early grave, Charlie Rangel! But a lot of CBC members are in fact in favor of banning menthol, many because of the fact that it disproportionately kills black people. Tobacco companies that currently support the bill, though, would probably oppose it if menthols got added.

It looks like menthols will stay legal, for now. Awesome for the black community as well as race car drivers!

[NYT]

The Sunday Times recently ran a damning investigative story on a lobbyist, and Ronn is here to offer up the other, less logical side of the argument:

• Lobbyists and PR firms are hired (PAID) to represent entities and to advocate on their behalf. It doesn't mean that they agree with the causes, but business is not academics, it is just business.

That's what gangsters say too.

• Having access and dropping names is a key part of business for lobbyists, PR firms and those of us in political life...Do friends not introduce one another for business? Is bringing a friend to golf, joining the country club or fraternity not about paying for access? Of course it is, and this is no different. He had access, and dropped names. That's not a scandal.

That's what gangsters say too.

• Many in the PR business are often too quiet about actions by an overzealous media attempting to make headlines and sell ink. Media oftentimes can endanger a client's business interests to the point of no return.

Those media: always trying to sell that ink! Perhaps someone should pay them a visit.

Other things that can endanger your business interests include lying on purpose, calling your employees synonyms for "vagina," and ensuring that all of your underlings are total clowns.

[Bulldog Reporter; pic via MB]