Perhaps all the credit for the Bushies' dirty tricks over the years should not go to Karl Rove.
Perhaps Karl Rove has retained Eric Dezenhall, a PR pit bull who operates under the radar with smashmouth techniques.
His name turned up on a DU thread yesterday where John McCain, Chuck Hagel, and others were proven to be linked to the Swiftboaters through an intermediary non-profit. From the list of clients/beneficiaries of that non-profit, I started following links. Here we go.
The firm is named Nichols-Dezenhall. Here are some quotes from Dezenhall:
In campaigns for clients, Dezenhall explained to an Associated Press journalist, unconventional tactics were often used. "Corporate wars are just like real wars: They're ugly, and they are won and lost in the details," he said. "A company might not want to know how you got the information, but they still want the information," Dezenhall said.
Dezenhall said that he tells corporate leaders that "if you live by the sword, you may die by the sword. But if you live by the olive branch, you still may die by the sword."
"To survive in a more competitive climate, corporations need to resort to unconventional resources, and some of those resources include using deceit to stop an attacker," he said. According to the article Nichols-Dezenhall "hires private detectives, former CIA, FBI, Drug Enforcement and other law enforcement officers for corporate investigations." <14> (
http://www.detnews.com/2000/technology/0007/04/technology-84481.htm)
(snip)
Dezenhall argues clients need to "hit back" against activist groups
In an article for Jewish World Review on the PR problems confronting the Israeli military in their battles with Palestinians, Dezenhall explained that "whomever owns the visuals of victimhood wins the PR war."
"Enormous, steel-plated tanks rumbling up residential streets. Uniformed soldiers surrounding plain-dressed snipers. Barbed-wire checkpoints. By military standards, that's effective. In public relations, it's a disaster. In the PR war, it is the symbols of victimhood that count and those being shot at - whatever they did to provoke it - are automatically victims in the eyes of the western press," he continued.
"The large companies I represent as a media consultant have learned all these lessons, mostly the hard way. Big equals bad. Strength is always immoral. Accusation requires investigation. In their marketplace battles, environmental radicals, consumer activists and trial lawyers are the darlings of the press. But my clients have learned how to hit back, strike the attackers first and sometimes even position themselves as the victims in the media melodrama," he explained. <10> (
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0602/dezenhall1.asp)
In an October 1999 panel discussion organized by the Independent Women's Forum on the "politics of personal destruction," Dezenhall explained his approach of putting "the attackers themselves at risk"
"In order to fight back, the target must be willing to be disliked, and be willing to be accused of being heavy-handed. You cannot always survive attack and be loved. When Cardinal Joe Bernardin was accused of molesting an altar boy, that attack did not stop until Bernardin decimated the altar boy. That's what I do. I beat up on altar boys and it doesn't look pretty. Nevertheless, it comes to that because the narrative sides with the altar boy," he said. <[br />
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Nichols-DezenhallThere's a huge opportunity here for some digging. Does Rove talk to Dezenhall? Did Dezenhall design the McCain attacks on Max Cleland?
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