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During my 10-year career in public relations, I counseled
several companies through crisis situations ranging
from small blunders to major problems. The textbook
approach is to determine the facts, apologize, outline
a plan to correct the problem, and communicate accurately
and often.
“Basic crisis management, whether you’re
a CEO or president, is to come out early, take responsibility
and try to put it behind you,” said Mark DiCamillo,
the director of the Field Research Corporation based
in San Francisco.
Clearly the Bush administration has not followed this
playbook, but instead has taken a painful incremental
approach. It has tried to conduct damage control, with
Bush denouncing the atrocities; then appearing on Arab
television in an attempt to show contrition to that
part of the world; and finally, with the White House
Rose Garden apology to King Abdullah. Since then, several
members of the administration have apologized, including
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, whose job remains
in the balance.
The question of whether the apology Bush delivered
to King Abdullah was enough to quell the storm has been
answered: It wasn’t. Would a stronger apology
have made a big difference?
“It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t an apology,”
said Barbara O’Connor, director of the Institute
for the Study of Politics and Media at California State
University at Sacramento.
But Jack Pitney, a professor in the government department
at Claremont McKenna College in Pomona, Calif., disagreed.
“Yes, it’s an apology,” he said. “The
question is: Was it strong enough for the Arab world?”
As a crisis counselor, I would say it wasn’t
strong enough. The goal should have been to end the
crisis, but the crisis rages on.
Meanwhile, Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential
nominee, has followed the public relations playbook
by remaining largely on the sidelines, allowing his
challenger to continue to make a mess of the situation.
Of course this leaves me in a bind: Do I offer up the
advice to the president in an effort to help him get
out of this growing crisis quagmire? Or, do I sit back
quietly while he digs his own political grave?
At this point in the crisis, there is very little that
semantics can do to reverse the tide. The president
must act decisively: Fire Rumsfeld; release the remaining
pictures; and continue to instruct the Pentagon to act
in a transparent and democratic way to bring an end
to the crisis and bring its perpetrators to justice.
Jon Haber, a communication strategist and former communications
director for the Howard Dean campaign concurs. “PR
tactics cannot fix the problem at this point,”
he said. “The story and public outrage is simply
too big and volatile. Perhaps getting all the info out
at one time could mitigate the negative press, but the
Abu Ghraib crisis has taken a life of its own and is
controlled by events beyond anyone’s control.”
In an effort to protect soldiers whose lives are increasingly
threatened by the ongoing fallout of the Abu Ghraib
crisis, I do hope the president heeds this advice. More
likely though, he will not. He will continue to allow
the news to leak bit by bit, creating an endless cycle
of bad news. Once again, the president is asking someone
to “bring it on.”
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