PR and Frost Nixon

After shopping with three kids in a snowstorm today, I was having a hard time finding a cab.  An off duty cab driver stopped and asked where I was headed, then waved us in.  I was helping the first kid across the icy curb when a man sprinted in front of me and jumped into the cab.  The man screamed at me that he had been first. I wasn’t up for a fight; I silently backed up my kids onto the sidewalk.  But the cabbie didn’t agree, he refused to take the man and waved us back in.

The driver was in a full rant about the man for ten blocks.  He was an elderly driver speaking in a heavy accent.  “I tell this man I am not going his way.  But he thinks I take him anyway? This man is on crack!”  He went on about cab etiquette and then declared, “The man’s face, his face look like — Mr. Bush!”

There it was, the ultimate insult.

It’s vogue in these final Bush moments to compare his exit to Nixon.  Bush’s approval rating fell to 24% in December, a few points lower than Nixon in the aftermath of Watergate.  At a recent dinner party on the upper east side of New York, the mention of how Bush exits the White House (triumphant or head bowed) elicited universal disgust.  No one believed that Bush would ever be held accountable for any number of the reasons his approval rating has plummeted.   Even if Bush or Cheney run into legal troubles, people argued, they will be swiftly pardoned.  Like Nixon.

This urge for an acknowledgement and apology was central to the plot in the Frost/Nixon movie.  Even with its historical distortions this movie is feel-good for its thesis that public relations can be used for the greater good.  The suspense of the movie is whether the media pros can hold Nixon accountable in a way that the legal and political system could not.

On the wrong side of history in this movie is Diane Sawyer, who worked in the Nixon administration and stuck by Nixon following impeachment to help him write memoirs.  I don’t know why she chose that path.  Did she believe in Nixon?  Did she view it as a worthwhile career stepping-stone?  Or both?

I wonder the same thing about White House spokesperson Dana Perino, who has survived the tough job of spinning the media for Bush during his descent into ratings quagmire.  Jon Stewart grilled her last spring on her insight into crisis public relations.  She described the Elliot Spitzer prostitution scandal as greater than any crisis situation she’s had to deal with.  Which of course would include thorny subjects like weapons of mass destruction and waterboarding and illegal detention at Guantanamo.

She appeared again last week on the Daily Show and described Bush as “always fun to be around, he’s extremely funny.”  She also said, about the Bush administration legacy, “we’re pretty proud of what we’ve accomplished.” (Jon Stewart, after a long pause, said simply, “why?”). I wondered, does she think she’s on the right side of history? Or potentially like Diane Sawyer, could her allegiance be a career maneuver?

Attorney General nominee Eric Holder is making negative headlines for his crisis work in the private sector.  He earned a reported $2.5 million per year managing tough crisis cases, like helping Chiquita manage accusations that it had collaborated with thugs.  Crisis management by its definition is thorny and secretive.  Whether someone did honorable work in these cases is sometimes complicated, often hard to discern.   If public relations is a tool for social change instead of simply a paycheck, it’s the side of history we land on that matters.

Crisis work, at its best, is about helping justice triumph over power.  Ron Howard made it come true in Frost Nixon with creative license.  Maybe, in the next week while we wait for the inauguration, it’s a good time to escape reality and go to the movies.