Sheldon Rampton & John Stauber: Weapons Of Mass Deception: The Uses Of Propaganda In Bush’s War On Iraq

Muckrakers Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, authors of Toxic Sludge Is Good For You! and Trust Us, We're Experts!, specialize in exposing the role public relations plays in molding popular opinion and shaping government policy. By nature, PR people thrive in secrecy, which is why Stauber and Rampton have done a tremendous service by subjecting the industry's tactics to the harsh light of open scrutiny. As its title suggests, Weapons Of Mass Deception explores the role PR played in marshalling public support for George W. Bush's war in Iraq. Written in a sharp, direct, reportorial style, Deception explores the looking-glass world of modern-day political PR, where the U.S. is perceived as a strong brand, not unlike Coca-Cola or Home Depot, and foreign-policy initiatives are rolled out like a new product launch. Many of the strategies detailed in the book will be familiar to readers of Toxic Sludge–most significantly, the establishment of heavily funded front groups with noble-sounding names to give the illusion of grassroots support. Packed with footnotes and hard data, Deception carefully debunks many of Bush's rationales for going to war. The ties between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are shown to be slippery at best, nonexistent at worst, and based on flimsy evidence; the same goes for evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. At times, Rampton and Stauber belabor the obvious: Including a partial transcript from The O'Reilly Factor to show that Bill O'Reilly is a bullying reactionary, for example, is like pointing to a specific event to prove that Michael Jackson might be slightly eccentric. For the most part, however, Deception squarely hits its target. Stauber and Rampton leave the name-calling to the attack dogs on the left and right, allowing the damning evidence to speak for itself.