So I’m cruising through the program guide on Comcast yesterday and I stumble upon Prince of Darkness. It was one of my favorite pseudo-horror movies when I was a kid, so I was psyched. I clicked the info option to make sure it was the same flick and this was the description:

A priest (Donald Pleasence) summons a professor (Victor Wong) to an old church to see a canister of liquid Satan.

If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll recognize that the description is technically accurate, but fails to capture the real essence of the film. A better description might have been:

Trapped in an old church, a priest (Donald Pleasance) and a professor (Jameson Parker) try to prevent Satan’s return to Earth.

Not much longer, and yet it sells the story better. But I don’t get the sense that the TV Guide writers are trying to be accurate or sell the movie. They’re just cranking out copy.

Anyway, this got me thinking about TV Guide and whether it may actually be challenging to sum up a movie that badly in one short sentence. So I figured I’d give it a try. Consider this my audition to write for TV guide. (Feel free to leave a comment with your own movie summaries.)

• The Bourne Identity – A man with memory trouble (Matt Damon) kills people.
• Top Gun – A pilot with daddy issues (Tom Cruise) flies Naval aircraft recklessly.
• Jaws – Three men (Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider) who need a bigger boat go fishing.
• Titanic – Two young lovers (Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet) experience extreme moisture.
• American Beauty – A man (Kevin Spacey) and his wife (Annette Bening) have marital problems.
• Jurassic Park – A team of scientists led by Sam Neill visit an amusement park accompanied by a lawyer.
• The Day After Tomorrow - The adventures of a climatologist (Dennis Quaid) studying weather.
• Rocky – A boxer (Sylvester Stallone) who may be mentally disadvantaged and has an aging coach (Burgess Meredith) tries dating.
• Forrest Gump – A mentally challenged man (Tom Hanks) waits for a bus and tells stories.
• The Silence of the Lambs – FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jody Foster) deals with a difficult inmate (Anthony Hopkins).

So another “Bush bashing” book is out (at least in excerpt) and the Bushie loyalists are again charging the airwaves and the Internet to defend GWB. Just as we saw with Scott McClellan, they’ll define Latimer as a doofus, out of the loop, in over his head, not as important as he thinks. (Which, of course, begs the question why the Administration excelled at hiring the incompetent and the self-important. Didn’t they have a screening process?)

I have read the excerpts of Latimer’s book and frankly don’t find all that much wrong with it. I’ll likely buy the book and consume it all simply because I liked the way the excerpts were written. His publisher is right. He has an engaging style. Was he in the room or across the street at the EEOB? Who cares. He was clearly closer to the President than 99.9% of Americans will ever get in their life, so let him have his say. We might find it interesting.

The treatment Latimer has received in the last 36 hours, however, has left me perplexed. It reminded me a lot of McClellan’s welcoming reception and that reminded me of something Peggy Noonan wrote.

William Safire, himself a memoirist of the Nixon years, said to me, a future memoirist of the Reagan years: “The one thing history needs more of is first-person testimony.” History needs data, detail, portraits, information; it needs eyewitness. “I was there, this is what I saw.” History will sift through, consider and try in its own way to produce something approximating truth.In that sense one should always say of memoirs of those who hold or have held power: More, please.

Noonan, and by extension Safire, were spot on. I think that every White House staffer should not be discouraged, but rather should be required to write a book, and tell the story of their time there. Our history demands that those making it (whether the President or his secretary) should provide us with as much detail as possible. When these books are written we should not denounce the writer, we should simply ask for the next installment from the guy who sat next to Latimer so we could see how he remembered the events.

One of the most interesting conversations I have ever had was with the woman who sat next to Monica Lewinsky in the White House. She once gave me her take on the woman behind the blue dress and it meant more to me than any ABC News special report.

Do I buy the caricature of Latimer as an opportunist trying to parlay his brush with fame into a financial windfall? Absolutely. Do I also believe that much of what he says is probably exactly as he remembers it? Absolutely.

That’s why we need more of these books, not less. We need to be able to compare notes and make our own determination about what happened, who these people were, where they made mistakes and where they proved they were only human.

Now, the latest to weigh in against Latimer in protecting the Bush years is James Carville.

This little dweeb needs to be glove slapped… People that have the honor of working in the White House ought not be going out and publishing this…

I couldn’t disagree with Carville more.

The people that need to be glove slapped are Carville and his ilk for attempting to silence future tomes. If Dana Perino, Tony Fratto, or Ed Gillespie recall events differently, let them write a book and give us their take. By the time all the ink dries, we might have a semi-complete picture of life inside the GWB administration.

Since political hacks are inclined to take credit for the sun coming up every day, I will be the first to declare victory in my ongoing campaign against the USDA Graduate School. An alert reader (holy crap! I have readers?) points me to this little passage in HR 6124 which became law in June.

`(B) TERMINATION OF AUTHORITY- The authority under paragraph (1) shall terminate on the earlier of–

`(i) the completion of the transition of the Graduate School to an entity that is non-governmental and not a nonappropriated fund instrumentality of the United States, as determined by the Secretary; or

`(A) IN GENERAL- The Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to use funds available to the Department of Agriculture and such resources of the Department as the Secretary considers appropriate (including the assignment of such employees of the Department as the Secretary considers appropriate) to assist the General Administrative Board of the Graduate School in the conversion of the Graduate School to an entity that is non-governmental and not a nonappropriated fund instrumentality of the United States, including such privatization activities not otherwise inconsistent with law or regulation.

`(1) CEASE OPERATIONS- Not later than October 1, 2009, the Secretary of Agriculture shall cease to maintain or operate a nonappropriated fund instrumentality of the United States to develop, administer, or provide educational training and professional development activities, including educational activities for Federal agencies, Federal employees, non-profit organizations, other entities, and members of the general public.

`(2) TRANSITION-

`(ii) September 30, 2009.’.

That’s right! The ridiculous waste of taxpayer time that is the USDA Graduate School must become a private entity or close its doors by October of next year.

Having flaunted its tax status to engage in direct competition with schools that don’t get such breaks, while still claiming to be “non-governmental” the USDA boxed itself into a corner. Apparently someone in government realized the ridiculous contradiction in calling it an NAFI while allowing it to use its government connection to skirt laws. So language was inserted to pull the plug on this $60 million boondoggle.

All I can say is it’s about time. Thank you to whatever House staffer followed my gripes about this and finally had the stones to kill it. Now the next question is, what bloated piece of bureaucratic crap do I set my sights on next?

P.S. I don’t actually believe I had anything to do with getting this killed, but I’ll be the first to pop the cork on a champagne bottle next October 1.

Update: My dear friend Anne was the first person to point out the absurd government abuse that is the USDA Graduate School. Any part I played in in getting it closed (which was none, but ignore that) starts with her.

A colleague pointed me at this article on ereleases.com. The writer had been trying to book a vacation and was swayed toward a particular hotel because he found the manager posting comments on travel websites – apologizing to customers who posted complaints and thanking guests for their feedback. When he told the manager that at check in, he heard something a lot public relations folks are probably familiar with.

“A lot of our customers say that,” the manager told me. “It’s funny because I didn’t want to do it at first, but our public relations person made me.”

It’s amazing how often companies and institutions are reluctant to directly engage in the online community. They see the Internet as some wild frontier untamable by any but the most rugged of men. The fact is, your efforts to explain your position, defend your policies, and yes, actually acknowledge your mistakes and apologize to your customers actually build your brand, not damage it. As the PR Fuel article points out:

The irony is that PR people have complained that websites such as TripAdvisor.com hamper their ability to control the message when, in fact, it gives PR people a great opportunity to manage a brand and message. By actively participating in a community of consumers, PR people can defend themselves against whiners and complainers who have anomalous experiences with a product or service, or who are just the type of customer no one wants to deal with.

As one hotel employee said in response to a review from a complaining customer, “I’m sorry that this person had such an awful experience. We did our best to meet their demands, but some people are just jerks.”

This response actually caused other customers to come to the defense of the hotel in question.

Openness, honesty, and engagement are your friends online. There is little room for hiding behind a small set of talking points and hoping you can get by. To be sure, this approach requires more work. It takes a lot of effort to troll through message boards and community sites. Services like Google Alerts can help by sending you notifications when someone posts about your brand online. Sites like Technorati monitor blog posts so you can easily find references to your brand on someone’s journal.

At that point, it’s up to you to go online and take part in the discussion. You may not remember every detail of your interaction with a particular customer, and that’s ok. You can acknowledge their concerns/complaints and explain what you would do to address them. You can also tell your side of the story – just do so respectfully.

For those who practice marketing and PR in the political space, the PR Fuel article shares one more anecdote that is particularly salient to you.

I know from my friends in the business that running any kind of hospitality enterprise is difficult. What makes it more difficult is when the business is not proactive about public relations, which sometimes simply amounts to above-and-beyond customer service in the industry. Restaurants, hotels and other hospitality businesses strive to get good reviews from professional reviewers, but they too often ignore getting their message across to the actual customer.

Why is that particularly valuable for political people? Think about that last sentence. How much time do we spend trying to guarantee good coverage by the New York Times, Washington Post or some local paper? Now how much time do you spend trying to get good word of mouth press from actual voters? The media will rarely create good word of mouth for your efforts – that’s simply not their job.

The reviewer will mention any flaw they see, even in an otherwise glowing review. In the same way, the media is going to talk about something you’ve done well, but will also make an effort to be ‘balanced’ by pointing out your warts. Good constituent service, and effective communication with voters, doesn’t necessarily carry that same overhead.

The best thing you can typically expect from the media is a neutral, mediocre article. The best thing you can get out of interaction with voters is a champion who will carry your message to friends and family without feeling compelled to also highlight your flaws. Which is worth more?

Today I’m launching a new Twitter project aimed at the pop culture aficionados among my fourteen readers. If you love the movies, but don’t have time to read long winded reviews, @MoviesIn120 is for you. @MoviesIn120 brings you movie reviews in 120 characters or less.

If you’re not yet familiar with Twitter, think of it like the status update on Facebook, but delivered via SMS text to your cell. If you’re not familiar with Twitter, SMS OR Facebook, why on earth are you reading my blog?

If you’re not psyched about joining Twitter, I’m also including the @MoviesIn120 feed in the sidebar. As I post new reviews, they’ll appear to the right. Enjoy!