Pre-Election Office Politics - How Bosses Can Keep the Peace When Reds, Blues (and Other Hues) Get Riled Up

Election Day is one week away, torquing up partisan disputes in the workplace. Hot-button issues—from religion in schools to gay marriage to legalized marijuana—are turning formerly safe conversations into strident, divisive debates.

Campaigns have "become so negative and adversarial that it gets people all riled up," says Deborah Weinstein, a Philadelphia lawyer and adjunct professor of employment law at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. "People will tell a manager or supervisor, 'I am being harassed by so-and-so because I'm part of the tea party,' " she says.

Ms. Weinstein says she's been contacted recently by more than a dozen employers seeking advice on managing political talk at work. She and other workplace specialists counsel that establishing rules of engagement is sometimes necessary. To keep the peace, bosses can simply remind people to focus on their jobs, stress the need to respect others' views or intervene to resolve conflicts between employees, if necessary.

Still, some employers accept political debates as a way of stimulating ideas and honing communication and teamwork. At GMR Marketing in New Berlin, Wis., political differences are treated "like college football rivalries. Just as you would trash talk the other guy's school on a big-game weekend, you make your point in a fun, spirited way," says Greg Busch, an executive vice president at the company.

Lately, the ice-breakers at weekly staff meetings have focused on politics. "Did you see this garbage on TV?" account supervisor Chris Boggs asked co-workers before a last week's meeting, describing an attack ad by a candidate blaming his opponent for trillions of dollars in federal debt. "How is one man responsible?"

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Jack Sherman

A co-worker with opposing views jumped in, and "everybody else said, 'OK, you guys go at it,' " says Mr. Busch, who ran the meeting. "It's one Republican versus one Democrat, and it just becomes sport at that point: Who's the best debater here?" A few minutes later, Mr. Boggs and his opponent agreed to disagree, and everyone got back to work. Mr. Boggs says the debates often end with co-workers "patting each other on the back and saying, 'Good job. You're still 100% wrong, but good job.' "

Other workplace debates are less peaceful. Many of the issues driving current races are deeply emotional, going "back to the family, to cultural loyalties and how you grew up," says Sylvia Lafair, a White Haven, Pa., leadership coach and psychologist. Some campaigns are arousing fears on both sides that basic values are at stake.

About 38% of people say they have been attacked, insulted or called names when discussing politics, says a 2008 survey of 712 people by VitalSmarts, a Provo, Utah, corporate-training company. And only 15% are confident they can express their personal views fully without getting upset.

Private-sector employers aren't required by federal law to protect employees' free-speech rights in the workplace, except on issues covered by fair-labor laws, such as wages. Some states have laws protecting political expression at work. Most employers handle the issue by training managers to resolve conflicts and reminding employees to focus on work.

Trying to find common ground with a political rival can help keep the peace. When a past co-worker learned that David Chamberlin had once worked for a nonprofit that opposed her personal views on abortion, "she specifically said she couldn't work with me," says Mr. Chamberlin, New York, senior vice president for an international public-relations firm. He focused on doing good work and tried to find areas of shared interest, such as health care, and she calmed down, Mr. Chamberlin says.

Other times, co-workers have to be told how they are affecting others. When Mr. Chamberlin's co-worker began introducing him to clients and co-workers as "the arch-conservative," he says, "it was her way of trying to be funny, but it also labeled me very clearly." He eventually explained that the label made him uncomfortable.

Rather than arguing with a co-worker who brings up a contentious topic, try making your point with a personal story, says Susan RoAne, a Greenbrae, Calif., speaker and author of books about communication skills. If you disagree with a fellow employee who is raging about Medicare costs, you might say, "I hate paying taxes too, but for my mother, Medicare has been a godsend." And if a co-worker rants and raves, avoid rising to the same pitch. Instead, she advises, try to "get more centered and more quiet, and less emotional."

The stickiest issues arise when bosses talk politics. Some 35% of bosses openly share their political views with employees, and 9% of employees feel pressure to conform to the boss's views, according to a 2007 survey of 727 workers by Vault.com, an career website.

But some bosses manage to foster open discussions. A conservative on most issues, Tony Clement voices his views freely among his 70 employees at the Campbell., Calif., construction-supply company he owns. "Whether you agree with me or disagree with me," he tells employees, "at least understand what is going on in the world." Denise Harris, an accounts-receivable administrator and a Democrat, says, "I can disagree with Tony's point of view, and we learn from each other."

When Mr. Clement circulated a conservative writer's critique of the Obama administration by email among employees, Michael Brown, a salesman for the company and a Democrat, says he told Mr. Clement "that not everything you read is true."

Mr. Clement says he recently changed his attitude toward gay rights after discussions with Mr. Brown. He realized the issues "were more than two people screaming at each other on TV," Mr. Clement says. Mr. Brown adds: "It's great being able to talk to the owner of the company" about such matters.

Write to Sue Shellenbarger at sue.shellenbarger@wsj.com

In Defense of the West—and the Third Way; In today's world, a progressive party that stands essentially for big government is not going to succeed.'

Tony Blair believes in "Islamist extremism."

It's U.N. week, and the former British prime minister is in town as the representative of the Quartet—the U.S., Russia, the EU and the U.N.—that aims to broker Mideast peace. We are in his suite at a posh Upper East Side hotel, talking about a passage in his just-published memoir in which he discusses the reach of the radical Islamist "narrative." It's a narrative, he argues, that needs to be "challenged head on."

This prompts me to ask whether he thinks that the widespread reluctance to use the word "Islamist" alongside the word "extremist" is a kind of evasion from reality.

"I think it is, I'm afraid," Mr. Blair answers, deploying the famously elegant diction that used to make for such invidious contrasts in the days when he shared a podium with George W. Bush. By way of explanation, he turns to the recent, aborted attempt by Florida Pastor Terry Jones to burn the Quran.

"I have no difficulty in saying this person is a Christian pastor but I completely and totally disagree with him," he explains. "It's fascinating, though, that when that happens the whole of the Western leadership have to come out and denounce it. . . . Let's say some cleric in some remote part of Pakistan turns up and says, 'I'm going to burn the Bible tomorrow.' What would we all say?"

Mr. Blair has been out of office for more than three years, but he is still sounding the same themes that were the touchstones of his decade in office. He is still faithful to the Third Way school of politics, still believes that government should be for empowerment not entitlement, and is still fighting a rear-guard action against fellow "progressives" who think it ought to be the other way round. But above all, Mr. Blair remains seized by the scope of the challenge posed by radical Islam.

"I think there is a tendency to regard the activities of the extremists who use terrorism and suicide bombings and so on as this small group of people unrelated to the broader [Muslim] community in which they exist," he says. "And I feel that narrative penetrates a lot deeper. And if you can't take that narrative on, you are left in a position where you end up semi-apologizing for your own position in relation to these things. And I think that's dangerous."

The narrative, as Mr. Blair describes it, consists of the view that the West is in cahoots with its client regimes in the Middle East—not just Israel, but also countries like Pakistan, Egypt and the Gulf emirates—to oppress Muslims and denigrate Islam. That narrative has its own subscribers among Western leaders and opinion-makers who believe the right approach is to say, in Mr. Blair's mocking paraphrase, "We kind of understand why you feel like this about us and maybe it's our fault but, you know, let's try and work this out."

Terry Shoffner

Mr. Blair has little patience with this view: It rubs him wrong not only because he believes the analysis is flawed and the prescription misguided, but also—and here I'm reading between the lines—because it suggests Muslims should be held to a different set of standards and values.

Yes, he says, the Muslim world needs "genuine demonstrations of equality, respect, partnership and so on." That's one reason, he adds, why he puts so much stock in the Israeli-Arab peace process. But Mr. Blair also stresses that what the Muslim world—or at last the modernizing forces within it—need from the West is "for us to be really strong about our own confidence in our position, our own way of life and the values we represent."

Part of that confidence is affirming the rightness of what the U.S., Britain and the rest of the Coalition of the Willing did in Iraq—and what they continue to do in Afghanistan. Regarding the so-called occupation of Iraq, Mr. Blair notes that from the middle of 2003 coalition forces were in the country "with full U.N. authority." The international community followed up with billions in aid to the country. Democratic elections were held; Iraqis indicated the kind of future they wanted for their country.

And then the effort nearly fell apart on account of the unremitting savagery of Baathist holdouts, al Qaeda recruits, and Iranian-backed militias. Mr. Blair would like to know why Iraq's tormentors should be let off the hook while its liberators are vilified. "For us to end up in this situation where people say this is an indication that you should never have gone there, that you should have just let Saddam stay—we really need to think about what we're saying when we're saying that."

Mr. Blair feels the same way about the apportionment of blame in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is confident of the good intentions of both Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (about whom, he adds, he is "absolutely sure [he] would sign a deal"). But he is also mindful of the way Israel is mindlessly castigated in the West, "particularly in Europe," for its every misstep, real or alleged.

"You cannot refuse to accept that Israel has a genuine security problem," he insists. "What does it mean when, the other day, President Obama launches the [Israeli-Palestinian] talks in the White House . . . and Hamas kill those [Israelis], including a pregnant woman and the parents of six children, and then put out a statement saying that this is an heroic act of courage? What does it say of the nature of what we're up against?"

Mr. Blair is equally emphatic about the need to confront Iran, which in his memoir he treats as morally equivalent to al Qaeda. Though he says he agrees with President Obama's approach to the regime—summed up as "here's a hand of friendship and now it's your choice"—he is under no illusions about the threat Iran poses. He is particularly enraged at the role it played in Iraq, including the supply of IEDs to insurgent forces that killed British and American troops. Might things in Iraq have gone better had the coalition confronted Iran's meddling sooner than it did? "I think that's a very, very good question," he replies.

The interview turns to the subject of Tehran's nuclear program. Could an Iran with nuclear weapons be contained, I ask, as it is now so fashionable to argue?

"I wouldn't take that risk," he replies without hesitation. "It is perfectly possible that a nuclear-armed Iran might be contained. But I think it's impossible to guarantee that, and it so drastically changes the balance of power within the region that it's not responsible" to allow it.

I say that sounds like he'd be prepared to countenance military strikes if other options fail.

Mr. Blair hedges for a moment: "When I'm asked this, [I always] default to the traditional line, which is to say I don't think you can take any option off the table."

I press: "But it sounds like you actually mean it."

He comes back more firmly: "I do mean it. . . . The alternative is to say that you are prepared to contemplate [a nuclear Iran], which, by the way, the moment you send that signal makes it a lot more likely to happen. So I think it's perfectly possible that we can avoid the situation. But I think the stronger and clearer we are, the more likely we are to avoid it."

Mr. Blair's tenure in office—begun, as he accurately puts it in his memoir, as a veritable love affair between him and the British electorate—is widely believed to have soured precisely because he holds these foreign policy views and was willing to act on them. Given that the Labour Party in Britain and the Democrats in the U.S. have now turned their back on the Third Way politics that gave Mr. Blair and Bill Clinton their resounding electoral victories, I wonder whether those politics would not have been more in vogue today had it not been for Iraq.

Mr. Blair demurs. "People forget this, but the closest I came to losing my job in a [parliamentary] vote was actually over tuition fees [for university students], and not over Iraq. The most difficult things were . . . introducing private-sector [reforms] into the health-care system, introducing academy schools, the equivalent of charter schools, and law and order."

It's a useful reminder. When Mr. Blair and Gordon Brown first came to office, the New Labour moniker was widely suspected of being a kind of political marketing device rather than representing a real change of heart by a party that had once been a de facto subsidiary of Britain's trade unions. But if Mr. Blair's memoir is anything to go by, he for one was a sincere convert to the New Labour faith. Among other things, it explains his current opposition to high rates of marginal taxation.

"The most important thing is to encourage strong growth, for the economy to create wealth. And I just think this is a very basic point . . . you need tax rates that are competitive with the world in which we live and in which people's hard work and enterprise is rewarded." As for the notion that the purpose of progressive governance is to tax the wealthy and redistribute it to the rest, Mr. Blair urges caution: "The people you end up hitting are not the very wealthy, because in my experience the very wealthy can make their own arrangements."

Mr. Blair is similarly worried about the perils of excessive regulation. While he believes that governments were right to respond to the financial crisis as they initially did, he worries that the recovery runs the risk of regulatory strangulation. "How you stabilize the economy is not the same as how you then get it let out of the crisis and back to strong growth, where you will need the private sector to be enterprising, innovative and able to compete." Nor does he have any patience with the demonization of the financial sector as "the bad guys" in the crisis.

The question arises of how Mr. Blair—a prep school boy and Oxford graduate who came to the Labour Party more from its intellectually Fabian wing than from the trade union movement—came by his views. Partly it's to do with his own father's rise from working-class roots, and partly by the pre-political years he spent as a commercial and industrial-relations lawyer, where he learned that "most people aspire to do better and most people actually want their kids to do better than them—and these are actually great engines of growth and progress."

But he also says his views are informed by traveling to emerging economies such as China. "These are all places where, if we're not careful, they are going to learn the lessons of our development and, funnily enough, they're not going to replicate all those lessons. . . . They will learn from our successes as well as our mistakes. And if we're not careful, they are going to leave us behind."

So much of what Mr. Blair says is so consonant with the political right-of-center that I ask him if he doesn't feel closer to John McCain politically than to Barack Obama. He laughs it off, calling himself a straight "Democrat-Labour" kind of guy. But elsewhere in the interview he offers a political warning to his fellow progressives:

"In today's world, in the 21st century, a progressive party that stands essentially for the state and big government is not going to succeed. Simple as that." I wonder if anyone in the White House is listening.

Mr. Stephens writes the Journal's Global View column.

Armstrong maintains high public profile

Lance Armstrong will appear on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and a slew of cable channels simultaneously Friday evening in a pre-taped segment for the celebrity-stocked "Stand Up To Cancer" telethon. He'll participate in a panel discussion and rub shoulders with heads of state and corporate VIPs at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City next week. Sometime before the end of 2010, he plans to join a State Department-sanctioned group that will visit Haiti to assess care for chronically ill people in the earthquake-stricken country.

On Oct. 2, the anniversary of Armstrong's 1996 testicular cancer diagnosis, his eponymous foundation, now known as Livestrong, will stage nationwide grassroots events related to survivorship and wellness. And later in the month, Armstrong will honor the foundation's top donors at his annual Ride for the Roses weekend in Austin, Texas.

The seven-time Tour de France winner does not appear to be ratcheting down his public profile or crossing anything off his schedule even as federal investigators continue to probe allegations of organized doping and fraud against Armstrong and some of his current and former team officials.

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Joel Saget/AFP/Getty ImagesLance Armstrong wore a black jersey at the end of the 2010 Tour de France to support the 28 million people living with cancer.

Foundation CEO Doug Ulman said none of the events were booked as a reaction to the investigation, and added, "There was never a minute's discussion of 'Should we do this or not?'"

Experts in crisis communications say that by going about his normal business and not ducking the spotlight, Armstrong is proceeding in exactly the way they would expect -- indirectly trying to influence public opinion, and by extension, perhaps even prosecutorial discretion.

"Anything else would send the wrong message,'' said Jim Haggerty, president and CEO of the PR Consulting Group in New York, which advises clients on communications strategies in high-profile lawsuits. "From a perception standpoint, anything that might make you look guilty makes you guilty.''

David Chamberlin, senior vice president and director of issues and crisis management for the New York-based MS&L Group, said Armstrong has built up a huge reservoir of public goodwill because of his association with the foundation, but noted that will only go so far if the facts don't support him.

"I tell my clients to just be honest, be truthful, because if you're not, it comes back and bites you,'' Chamberlin said. "He's said what he's said over and over again. If it turns out that he lied, he has bigger problems.''

Armstrong's lead criminal defense attorney, Bryan Daly, has said he fears the foundation could be hurt if the current legal limbo drags on. There is potential jeopardy on two fronts now: a Food and Drug Administration investigation backed by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, and a whistle-blower lawsuit filed by former teammate Floyd Landis that remains under seal as the Department of Justice weighs whether to get involved.

Daly and Mark Fabiani, the lawyer/spokesman hired by Armstrong earlier this summer, have repeatedly tried to hammer home the notion that the probes are an unwarranted use of public funds. They hope that message, coupled with Armstrong's continued high visibility, will resonate with the public. Whether that would or could influence the path of the federal investigations is another question, and those doing the investigating aren't talking.

IPO could generate big funds

Armstrong's return to professional cycling in 2009 after three years in retirement helped the foundation's bottom line in a sagging economy. According to figures provided by the foundation, revenues from donations ($12 million) and merchandise sales ($3.5 million) from January through August of this year are up 2 and 10 percent, respectively, from the same period the previous year. (In 2009, the first year of Armstrong's comeback, revenues from those two sources spiked 29 and 44 percent higher than in 2008 in those eight months.) The number of individual donations is up from last year, but the average amount of each donation has declined slightly, a trend Ulman attributed to economic factors.

The foundation's finances -- and that of Armstrong himself -- could get a boost soon, thanks to a business deal struck in January 2008. At that time, the social media/content provider Demand Media acquired perpetual licensing rights to use the foundation's registered trademark as a commercial domain name. Shortly afterward, Demand launched the for-profit website Livestrong.com, which features stories and interactive features about fitness, diet and mental health issues, among others.

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Jamie McCarthy/WireImageLance Armstrong, Doug Ulman, president of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and Richard Rosenblatt, president and CEO of Demand Media attend the Livestrong.com Launch Party in New York on June 17,2008.

In return, Demand gave the foundation perpetual rights to use its proprietary social media platform on its website, Livestrong.org, and guaranteed that it would drive a certain amount of traffic to the nonprofit site. Armstrong and Demand entered a separate agreement under which Armstrong became a "strategic advisor and ongoing content contributor" to Livestrong.com for the next four years. The joint announcement also disclosed that Armstrong and the foundation had acquired unspecified equity stakes in Demand.

Privately held Demand last month filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicating the company's intention to raise capital through an initial public offering of its stock. The S-1 filing for the IPO shows the foundation holds 1.25 million warrants -- which give the holder the right to buy, but no obligation -- to purchase shares of Demand at a price of $6. Armstrong personally holds 1,062,500 warrants at the same price, and his management company, Capital Sports and Entertainment, holds 187,500. The warrants must be exercised by the end of the first day of the public offering and then can be resold or held at the owner's discretion.

IPOs don't always go forward if market conditions aren't right, and there's no guarantee that the price of the stock would exceed the warrant price -- although it wouldn't take much for the foundation and Armstrong to realize a substantial profit.

Two heads of charity watchdog groups that rate nonprofit organizations said the deal's apparent bundling of Armstrong's personal financial interests with those of the foundation troubled them.

"This blurs the lines between the foundation and its charitable mission, and the personal gain of its founder,'' said Ken Berger, president and executive director of Charity Navigator. "It's mixing two purposes in a way that smells of a conflict of interest. The most precious thing a charitable organization has is the public's trust, and things like this put a chink in that.''

Daniel Borochoff, founder and president of the American Institute of Philanthropy in Chicago, said he was uncomfortable with the arrangement, especially because Armstrong remains chairman of the board of the foundation. "Nonprofits have to be concerned not only with actual conflicts of interest, but the appearance of conflicts of interest,'' Borochoff said.

Dean Zerbe, an expert on charity regulations and former tax counsel to the Senate Finance Committee, had another view: "It's a different relationship, but I wouldn't immediately label it as suspect or wrong." He said many nonprofits license their trademarks, and his chief question would be whether the foundation received fair compensation and was not unduly influenced by Armstrong's talks with Demand.

"I can legitimately see a company saying, 'We want both of them,'" said Zerbe, national managing director at alliantgroup, a tax advisory firm. "He's unique because he has value, and he's so intertwined with the trademark.''

Los Angeles-based attorney Doug Mancino, who specializes in representing nonprofit organizations, vetted the Demand deal for the foundation as its outside counsel. He said that the two transactions were negotiated on a parallel track but completely separately, and that Armstrong recused himself from any decisions made by the foundation board. The value of the trademark as a commercial domain name was determined in an independent analysis by intellectual property attorneys, and Mancino said he was satisfied that the foundation received full worth.

Ulman said he views the Demand relationship as one of several "innovative, entrepreneurial" steps the foundation has taken in tandem with corporate partners that also have relationships with Armstrong. Livestrong.com is "furthering our mission in significant ways,'' he said.

Texas legislator seeks investigation's end

Armstrong's lawyers have said they will refrain from lobbying politicians or policy makers to try to get the investigations quashed, although they acknowledge they hope to draw support for their contention that the allegations against Armstrong are not a matter for the government to explore.

Daly said that making a direct pitch to elected and appointed officials could easily backfire. "We have no plans to reach out to legislators, but if anyone has a question, we will answer it," Fabiani said.

From a crisis communications vantage point, Chamberlin agreed. "If that were to become public, it makes it look like he's trying to get out of something instead of facing the music,'' he said. But Chamberlin said he had no doubt that Armstrong has "naturally" made numerous connections in politics and policy circles through his foundation work and his celebrity.

The first shot over the bow may have come from Texas State Rep. Allen Vaught, a Democrat who represents east Dallas. Vaught said he does not know Armstrong personally but was familiar with him through the cyclist's campaign to pass a 2007 state cancer research funding ballot initiative, Proposition 15.

Vaught told ESPN.com that a conversation with a constituent he met while campaigning door-to-door prompted him to write a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg protesting the premise of the agency's investigation. The probe is being led by Jeff Novitzky, the same agent who spearheaded the BALCO steroids investigation when he worked for the Internal Revenue Service.

In the Aug. 26 letter, Vaught said he was skeptical about the allegations against Armstrong, but "more upset that taxpayer resources might be used in this matter. We have millions of contaminated eggs, peanut products possibly contaminated with [pesticides], seafood possibly made toxic by benzene contamination from the BP oil spill and prescription medications that are unsafe for end users. During these challenging times, the FDA should be using taxpayer resources to address those issues and other pressing life-and-death matters, and not a retired athlete.''

The waste-of-money argument has been made recently by many high-profile athletes and officials facing charges or accusations, and is always more effective in times when the economy is suffering, Haggerty said. "It's the argument du jour,'' he said.

There is certainly precedent for such investigations in other countries -- although it's also true that laws regulating the use of performance-enhancing drugs and techniques vary wildly from nation to nation. Law enforcement authorities in France, Austria, Italy, Germany and Spain have gone to some lengths to try to crack doping cases.

The fiscal argument has been a largely one-sided dialogue so far because federal authorities won't comment on their reasoning, much less their expenditures. Similarly, U.S. Anti-Doping Agency chief executive officer Travis Tygart refused comment on the Armstrong investigation or any ongoing case, but he vigorously defended the government's right to explore such cases.

"Fraud, corruption and drug use are criminal, dangerous and potentially life-threatening activities that would not be tolerated in any other important social institution in our country,'' Tygart wrote in an e-mailed response to ESPN.com.

"In fact, clean athletes and those that value corruption-free sport have asked that more resources, not less, be devoted to ensure that their rights, as well as the integrity and values of our national pastimes, be fully protected.''

Bonnie D. Ford covers tennis and Olympic sports for ESPN.com. She can be reached at bonniedford@aol.com.

Mercy live premiere in Zurich

I was drinking some wine and it turned to blood
What's the use of religion if you're any good
I know I'm weed killer, honey, and you're sugar
If you're the prosecution I get away with murder
If you were ice, I'm water
And with your telescope I can see further
We're binary code, a one and a zero
You wanted violins and you got Nero
You're gravity searching for the ground
You're silence searching for a sound
Your heart is aching, your heart is my home
It's fascinating, I know Ill never be alone

I'm ripping the stitches
We've got two hands to rub
I'm digging the ditches
Of someone else's love

Love heals when I lie
Love puts the blue back in my eye
Love will come again
I'll be gone again
Again

If you hunger, baby let me feed it
If your heart is full, baby let me bleed it
And happiness is for those who don't really need it
You love me too much
You always love me too much

When I was ripping the stitches
We've got two hands to rub
I'm digging the ditches
Of someone elses luck

Love heals when I lie
Love puts the blue back in my eye
Love has come again
I am gone again

Love has got to be with the weak
Only then love gets a chance to speak
Love will come again
I'll be gone again
Again

I, I can't escape myself
I'll hear you talk
Fear nothing
I fear nothing
Fear
How can someone fear nothing
How can someone fear nothing

Love is come again
I am gone again
Love is the end of history
The enemy of misery
Love is come again
I am gone again
Love is justice, not charity
Love brings with it a clarity
Love is come again
I'm alive again
Alive
I am alive
Baby, I'm born again
And again and again and again
And again and again
Again

Blair: Bono “could have been a president or prime minister”

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has some strong praise for Bono in Blair’s just-released memoir, A Journey. He says Bono “could have been a president or prime minister standing on his head.” Here’s a snapshot of the full paragraph sent in by @U2 reader Neil W.

Trust Breakdown, Trust Refresh: A Lesson from Banks

Published by Sally on September 2, 2010 in Reputation Management. 0 Comments

In Cleveland Vs. Wall Street, Swiss filmmaker Jean-Stéphane Bron captures the pain of ordinary people hit by the financial crisis. As the film’s mock trial progresses, he demonstrates how people come together to save their community. Yet he also clearly portrays people’s anger over banks, which leads us to the MSLGROUP study: “The banking industry in post-crisis times: From vanished trust to evidence-based credibility.”

At MSLGROUP, we think a brand is nothing if people do not trust the company behind it. And in our post-crisis world, too many institutions suffer from a lack of this most important quality.

To fully understand this dynamic, and to better serve our clients, MSLGROUP conducted an eight-week research project on the state of the financial services industry.

We conducted a comprehensive media and data review, talked with financial experts and conducted an online survey in partnership with Linkfluence in the USA, UK, France, Germany and China. We analyzed the tone of blogs in these countries, and listened to opinions on who is to blame for the crisis and what should be done now.

In a series of blog posts, found in the Reputation Management category, we will share with you what we learned. In short, banks are mostly to blame for the financial crisis, and some institutions may never fully recover.

As our colleague David Chamberlin, SVP and director of issue and crisis management at MSL North America says, “ The destruction of wealth we have witnessed through the global crisis appears to be easing. But the destruction of brand equity and reputation among financial institutions show no sign of relenting.”

And these insights are easily applicable to other industries, for let’s not forget the “trust crisis” that BP is experiencing.

In our next blog post, we will discuss our “Value for All” proposition and what it means for your brand.

For more information on the MSLGROUP research project and results, please contact Chief Strategy Officer Pascal Beucler at pascal.beucler@mslgroup.com or +33 1 57 32 86 66.

Theology, Culture and U2

"My course "MIN 340 Theology, Culture and U2" begins again this fall at Fresno Pacific University. This is the third time I will teach it (it's offered every other fall) and it's one of my favorites. I'll try to bring updates from the course to this blog every now-and-then.

I still have room for more students in the class, so if you're in the Fresno, CA area and have Tuesdays from 3:30-5:05 free and want to take it for credit or just audit let me know.

For texts we'll be using Bono in Conversation with Michka Assayas and Get Up Off Your Knees: Preaching the U2 Catalog by Beth Maynard (over at U2 Sermons) and Raewynne J. Whiteley. Beth has been a great friend and somewhat of an inspiration for the class.

Here is a flyer for the course. Here is the the syllabus. And here is the class reading and topic schedule."

U2 And NASA Create Video To Celebrate Collaboration

NASA and U2 released a commemorative video highlighting a year's worth of collaboration in space and on the Irish rock band's 360 Degree tour. U2 approached NASA in 2009 with an idea to include a dialogue between the band and the crew of the International Space Station during U2's world tour.

Extreme?

"Those Voices Don't Speak for the Rest of Us"

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me - U2

Glastonbury - U2

North Star - U2

Return Of The Stingray - U2

Crisis Communications Expert David Chamberlin Named One of PRWeek’s ‘40 under 40’

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--David Chamberlin, Senior Vice President and Director of Crisis and Issues Management at MS&LGroup, one of the world’s leading communications firms, was chosen as one of PRWeek’s ’40 Under 40.’ Each year, PRWeek highlights 40 of the top public relations professionals under the age of 40 from both agency and in-house roles.

Chamberlin, who has been with MS&LGroup since 2007, leads the issues and crisis specialty within the agency’s Corporate Practice. The Corporate Practice represents some of the world’s biggest brands. Chamberlin maximizes reputation capital, providing strategic counsel and crisis expertise.

“David’s experience in crisis communications is invaluable in today’s business climate,” said Renee Wilson, President of the Northeast Region, MS&LGroup North America. “We are thrilled to have him on our team, as he is instrumental in leading our clients through some of their most challenging times.”

Also this year, MS&LGroup’s Rita Masini, Chief Talent Officer, was named one of 2010’s Top Young Trainers by Training Magazine. This annual list highlights the world’s top leaders in HR. Since joining MS&LGroup in 2008, Rita launched the agency’s North American training program, MS&L Academy, which seeks to develop further the strategies and skills of executives across all levels.

Additionally, The Network Journal’s ‘40 Under Forty Black Achievement Awards’ recognized Teneshia Jackson Warner, CEO of MS&LGroup’s strategic partner Egami Consulting, this past June. The list recognizes African American professionals who have made a credible impact on both their industry and their communities.

About MS&LGroup

MS&LGroup is one of the world’s top three PR and Events networks, specialists in public relations, public affairs, branding, corporate and financial communications, social media marketing and events. Operating in wholly owned and affiliate offices in more than 80 countries spanning the Americas, EMEA and Asia, MS&LGroup provides many of the world's largest companies and most recognized brands with best-in-class communication strategies to help them reach their business and communication goals. www.mslgroup.com

MS&LGroup is part of Publicis Groupe [Euronext Paris: FR0000130577], the world's third largest communications group. With activities spanning 104 countries and 43,000 professionals, Publicis Groupe offers a complete range of advertising services through three global advertising networks, Leo Burnett, Publicis, Saatchi & Saatchi, and two multi-hub networks, Fallon and 49%-owned Bartle Bogle Hegarty. Media consultancy and buying is offered through two worldwide networks, Starcom MediaVest Group and ZenithOptimedia; and interactive and digital marketing led by Digitas and Razorfish. Publicis Groupe recently launched VivaKi to leverage the combined scale of the autonomous operations of Digitas, Razorfish, Starcom MediaVest Group, Denuo and ZenithOptimedia to develop new services, tools, and next generation digital platforms. Web site: www.publicisgroupe.com.

About Publicis Groupe

Publicis Groupe [Euronext Paris: FR0000130577] is the world's third largest communications group. In addition, it is ranked as the world’s second largest media counsel and buying group, and is the first global network in digital and healthcare communications. With activities spanning 104 countries on five continents, the Groupe employs approximately 45,000 professionals. Publicis Groupe offers local and international clients a complete range of advertising services through three global advertising networks, Leo Burnett, Publicis, Saatchi & Saatchi, and two multi-hub networks, Fallon and 49%-owned Bartle Bogle Hegarty. Media consultancy and buying is offered through the two first ranked worldwide networks, Starcom MediaVest Group and ZenithOptimedia; and interactive and digital marketing led by the two first ranked Digitas and Razorfish networks. Publicis Groupe launched VivaKi to leverage the combined scale of the autonomous operations of Digitas, Denuo, Razorfish, Starcom MediaVest Group and ZenithOptimedia to develop new services, tools, and next generation digital platforms. Publicis Groupe’s specialized agencies and marketing services offer healthcare communications with Publicis Healthcare Communications Group (PHCG, the first network in healthcare communications), sustainability communications and multicultural communications. With MS&L Group, the sixth PR and events network, Publicis Groupe expertise ranges from corporate and financial communications to public relations and public affairs, branding, social media marketing and events, sports marketing and events. Web site: www.publicisgroupe.com

PR Week - 40 under 40 2010: Early influencers

Decades of experience aren't a requirement for success in the PR industry. PRWeek profiles 40 professionals, nominated by colleagues, who have already made significant contributions to their agencies, clients, and organizations.

Forty reasons to be excited about the industry's future prospects

Steve Barrett

August 01, 2010

A place in PRWeek's annual 40 Under 40 list is a badge of honor for rising stars in communications working across all sectors of the industry. Those recognized are at the forefront of the race to become the next generation of CCOs, CMOs, and agency CEOs (read full article here).

This year's entries were more impressive than ever, with 200-plus hopefuls vying for a place. In fact, the quality was so high, 100 could easily have made the cut. The list represents all facets of communications, from CCOs at corporations and nonprofits to an entrepreneur who has set up his own agency and worked hard to build it into a $5 million business to someone who controls $100 million of revenue heading a division at a top-five firm. It covers all parts of the country and all disciplines, from financial to consumer, healthcare to public affairs. It's a tribute to the talent in our industry, which bodes so well for the future of PR.

David Chamberlin, SVP, director of issues and crisis management, MS&L, 38

August 01, 2010

At MS&L, David Chamberlin leads a multi-office account team responsible for developing strategy in employee communications, product marketing, branding, government relations, corporate and financial communications, sales, and social media for clients that include Citi, Samsung, and Heineken. His 15 years in PR, with stints in several industries, are strewn with highlights. At Edelman, he led the team responsible for Advanced Medical Optics' 13-country recall of 2.9 million units of eye-care solution in Asia-Pacific in 2006. At Nortel Networks, Chamberlin drove the communications strategy for its largest ever growth period.

Steve Jobs Looks to Deflect Focus From 'Antennagate'

As Apple Boss Offers Solution to IPhone 4's Reception Problem, Issue Is Not Expected to Damage Brand

by Kunur Patel
Published: July 16, 2010

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Apple CEO Steve Jobs cried uncle today in response to what he termed "Antennagate," the first major brand attack on the popular iPhone handset.

Engadget

Steve Jobs gives a presentation at the iPhone 4 press conference today in Cupertino, Calif.

But before he offered free cases to iPhone 4 users as solution to the phone's antenna issues, Mr. Jobs, during a press conference at his Cupertino, Calif., headquarters, was sure to kick some dirt on his competitors and share stats in an attempt to minimize the backlash.

"It was interesting that there was a huge preamble" before the announcement, said Will Stofega, mobile analyst of research firm IDC. "It seemed a little defensive from the start."

Apple's iPhone has been in the hot seat over an alleged design flaw in the fourth-generation phone's wrap-around antenna. Since the iPhone 4's arrival three weeks ago, reports have flooded in that the smartphone loses service when human hands grasp the rim on the lower left corner. This marks the first time problems with reception, a longtime issue for the iPhone, have fallen to the hardware maker and not the phone's exclusive carrier, AT&T. Apple scheduled the conference on short notice after Consumer Reports earlier this week said it could not recommend the latest iPhone because of hardware issues.

Despite the antenna reports, Mr. Jobs said Apple has sold more than 3 million units of the newest iPhone in the last three weeks. Of those iPhone 4 owners, less than 1% have called AppleCare to complain, he said. What's more, less than 2% have returned iPhone 4, vs. 6% for the last iPhone, 3GS.

Mr. Jobs was also sure to link competitors HTC, Research in Motion and Samsung to antenna problems. Mr. Jobs told attendees at the impromptu press conference that other phones, namely the Droid Eris, Blackberry Bold and Omnia, suffer from the same problem.

"Phones aren't perfect," Mr. Jobs said. "It's a challenge for the whole industry. Every phone has weak spots."

Mr. Jobs did not bring up free cases until the end of the presentation. Apple's handing out free cases to cover the antenna's weak spot was the expected solution, a cost-effective alternative to a product recall that analysts estimated would cost Apple $1.5 billion.

"This is the most inexpensive [option] for Apple and the simplest solution for consumers," said David Chamberlin, director of crisis and issues at MS&L Group. "But it's a shame it took almost a month for this to come about."

That's not to say this hiccup will have a lasting impact on one of the most hallowed brands in recent memory.

"[The iPhone has] had a better run than any other product I can think of," added Mr. Chamberlin. "Waiting as long as they have to address this caused unnecessary harm to the brand that is worse than would have occurred by taking quick action."

In a small-sample-size impromptu survey, IDC found that 66% of respondents plan to delay purchasing the iPhone because of the antenna problem.

But it still doesn't look like this is the beginning of the end for Apple's untouchable brand run. "Three million in three weeks; that number speaks for itself," said IDC's Mr. Stofega.

"This is the first big, high-profile misstep they've had," said Mr. Chamberlin. "But no one appears to be backing away from the iPhone in terms of their desire to have one."

Branding exec James Fox, chief strategic officer at Red Peak Group, calls "Antennagate" a storm in a tea cup. "I think this is only going to be a blip," he said. "I don't think this is going to have any long-term impact." He characterized the dig at competitors as a "clever little side swipe."

"Will it spoil the brand? A little bit," Mr. Stofega said. "But I think they'll come back. They have a halo around them."

Apple comms under microscope

Kimberly Maul

July 16 2010

When Consumer Reports came out and said it could not recommend the iPhone 4, it was the latest in a series of setbacks around the debut of Apple's latest smartphone. Plagued by reception issues, particularly when held a certain way, the iPhone 4 has attracted an onslaught of criticism from the media and consumers. Now, Steve Jobs' notoriously tight-lipped computer firm has come into the open and is holding a press conference today (Friday July 16), but is still keeping mum about what exactly is going to happen.

Some expect the company to release a software fix for the issue, while others wonder whether Apple will recall the device. But because there is a relatively simple fix—a bumper case—a recall seems too costly and unlikely, says David Chamberlin, SVP and director of issues and crisis management at MS&LGroup.

"Providing bumper cases, at this point, is something they have to do," he says, noting that action would help the company get back in consumers' good graces, fix the issue without a recall, and just make sense.

"In hindsight, it would have been ideal for them to have dealt with this issue on the day of its introduction, instead of waiting until launch day or even after their consumers discovered it on their own," he adds. Waiting so long to address the issue with a press conference, he adds, has hurt the brand.

Tony Hynes, West Coast GM at Bite Communications, which used to work with Apple in the UK before it brought comms in-house, notes that the timing is unfortunate for the iconic technology firm, which has already dealt with a lost prototype of the iPhone 4 in April and the subsequent raid and investigation of the Gizmodo blog that wrote about it - both of which damaged its reputation.

Additionally, since the reception issue became more and more widespread, reports have surfaced of conflicts inside the company, and antenna engineers previously warning CEO Jobs that the design would affect reception.

"This is a profound issue, not just around the phone, but also a corporate issue for them, and a perception issue going forward," Hynes says. "I don't know whether they are looking at any of the crisis firms or considering talking to them, but that would be a prudent thing for them to do."

The company is looking at the problem through the eyes of an engineer, when it needs to look at it from a consumer's perspective, Chamberlin says. Apple originally told consumers to simply hold the phone a certain way, or buy the $29 bumper. The company did not return calls or e-mails for comment for this piece.

But the press conference, which was announced July 14, suggests the company is taking a positive step in being more transparent, even though Apple has been super-secretive about what exactly will be announced.

"They're not an organization that's used to transparency and they are used to having extremely tight control over all their messaging," Hynes says. "Jobs is implicitly involved in everything. It has to come from Jobs."

But while the press conference is a step towards transparency, it still gives Apple the opportunity to control its message and present it in a way it sees fit.

"This is not the BP spill by any stretch of the imagination, but at the same time, this has gone on now for two or three weeks," says Chamberlin. "They've got the opportunity to do something here that helps them long term and makes people feel better about the Apple brand."

Michael and Anthony Emerson: Church, you don’t know how beautiful you are

U2's “No Line on the Horizon” has been one of their more misunderstood albums. The most misunderstood song of the album is “Get On Your Boots.” Here is a snippet.

The future needs a big kiss
Winds blow with a twist
Never seen a moon like this
Can you see it too?
Night is falling everywhere
Rockets at the fun fair
Satan loves a bomb scare
But he won't scare you

“Get On Your Boots” is is bombastic and urgent, sleek and fast-paced. But more than anything it’s a powerful message of hope to the church. Take, for example, the first line, “the future needs a big kiss.” What entity would be able to impact the future with a kiss (curious choice of words, right)? How about the bride of Christ, the church? The future needs the church because of the next six lines: the winds are blowing, the moon (a motif of confusion and evil) is up, night has fallen, and Satan is trying to frighten us. Why would Bono have the boldness to tell us that Satan shouldn’t scare us? Remember Matthew 16:18: “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” Therefore, get on your boots. In other words, get up and do some work in this dark world because God has empowered you to do so.

You free me from the dark dream
Candy floss ice cream
All our kids are screaming
But the ghosts aren't real
Here's where we gotta be
Love and community
Laughter is eternity
If joy is real

“You free me from the dark dream” suggests the church is saving the lost. Then we see giddy happiness in the second line with paradoxical, light-hearted objects (happiness doesn't make sense). The third and fourth lines convey the same idea as the last two lines of the first stanza. Things become clearer when the necessity of community is brought in. Laughter is a godly and reasonable thing if there really is a happy ending awaiting us. We can fight the evils of this world with light hearts because we are fighting within a vibrant community of Spirit-filled people.

You don't know how beautiful you are

You, the church, don't understand how made-in-the image-of-God awesome you can be. You can have perfect joy and community! So get on your boots and be boldly beautiful!

Women of the future hold the big revelations
I've got a submarine
You got gasoline
I don't want to talk about wars between nations

It is striking how near the message of this song is to Hauerwas' and Willimon's “Resident Aliens.” Since we no longer live in a Christian culture, the church is free to live as a distinct people once again. We are to impact the world through our colony, not as we have been doing since Constantine: through the government. The holy community that we are supposed to be can astound the world by how beautiful we are and how much love we show the world. The problems and conflicts of this world will not be solved by mere mortals. Only through the church can the world be truly redeemed. Get on your boots!

Let me in the sound!

Where did this come from? Acts 2. “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven . . .”. The birth of the church. If you want more proof, look at John 3:5-8, where Jesus compares being born of the Spirit to the sound of the wind – we can’t tell where it's going. It's probably not a coincidence that both the sound and birth are themes throughout “No Line on the Horizon.” The sound is representative of the Spirit, the Lord of the church.

There are people in the world who want in! Get on your boots, and let the church get to stepp’in!

Michael O. Emerson is the Cline Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Center on Race, Religion, and Urban Life at Rice University in Houston, Texas. His son, Anthony Emerson, is a sophomore at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

Apple Bumping Into Recall Problem

Scott Moritz

07/13/10 - 11:29 AM EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Apple's(AAPL) iPhone antenna problem has turned into a growing public relations problem.

Apple shares were down 3% Tuesday in the wake of a troubling Consumer Reports review of the newest iPhone. The review, which otherwise spoke glowingly about the phone, concluded that "Apple needs to come up with a permanent -- and free -- fix for the antenna problem before we can recommend the iPhone 4."

Apple has now effectively been called out on the problem that has been widely apparent since the iPhone's arrival five weeks ago. And to date, Apple has taken little responsibility for the glitch, initially blaming users for holding the phone incorrectly.

But the outcry seems to be getting a little louder and Apple may have to find a suitable response.

"It's time to offer free bumpers," said David Chamberlin, director of crisis management for PR group MS&L Group, referring to rubber covers that may insulate the antenna in a way that duct tape helped improve the performance at Consumer Reports' labs.

Cramer: Wait to Buy Apple >>

"The key in reputation management is five-fold: keep the customer as your north star, be prepared, take quick action, be authentic and be responsible," said Chamberlin.

"Apple needs to address this issue through the lens of their customers, not through the lens of an engineer. Providing bumper cases to customers with the phone would be a nice gesture," Chamberlin said.

Bumpers could help Apple avoid a massive recall, but it would also put Apple in the position of having to fess up to a hardware design problem.

Apple did not respond for comment.

It is also quite possible, given the sales strength of the iPhone and iPad and Macs, that Apple may not feel the need to offer customers any free fixes to the phone.

--Written by Scott Moritz in New York.

In Ireland, Tuesday’s Grace, by Bono

by Deirdre O'Callaghan

ONE of the most extraordinary days in the mottled history of the island of Ireland was witnessed on both sides of the border last Tuesday.

The much-anticipated and costly Saville report ... the 12-years-in-the-making inquiry into “Bloody Sunday,” a day never to be forgotten in Irish politics ... was finally published.

On that day, Jan. 30, 1972, British soldiers fired on a civil rights march in the majority Catholic area of the Bogside in Derry, killing 14 protesters.

It was a day that caused the conflict between the two communities in Northern Ireland — Catholic nationalist and Protestant unionist — to spiral into another dimension: every Irish person conscious on that day has a mental picture of Edward Daly, later the bishop of Derry, holding a blood-stained handkerchief aloft as he valiantly tended to the wounded and the dying.

It was a day when paramilitaries on both sides became the loudest voices in the conflict, a day that saw people queuing to give up on peace ... mostly young men but also women who had had enough of empire and would now consider every means necessary — however violent or ugly — to drive it from their corner.

It was a day when my father stopped taking our family across the border to Ulster because, as he said, the “Nordies have lost their marbles.” And we were a Catholic-Protestant household.

Contrast all this with last Tuesday ... a bright day on our small rock in the North Atlantic. Clouds that had hung overhead for 38 years were oddly missing ... the sharp daylight of justice seemed to chase away the shadows and the stereotypes of the past. No one behaved as expected. The world broke rhyme.

A brand-new British prime minister, still in his wrapping paper, said things no one had imagined he would ... could ... utter ....

“On behalf of our country, I am deeply sorry.”

And there was more ....

“What happened should never ever have happened,” said the new prime minister, David Cameron. “Some members of our armed forces acted wrongly. The government is ultimately responsible for the conduct of the armed forces. And for that, on behalf of the government, indeed on behalf of our country, I am deeply sorry.”

It was inconceivable to many that a Tory prime minister could manage to get these words out of his mouth. It was also inconceivable — before he uttered the carefully minted phrasing — that he would be listened to by a hushed crowd gathered in Guildhall Square in Derry, a place not famous for its love of British leaders of any stripe, and that he would be cheered while speaking on specially erected screens that earlier had been used to relay images from the World Cup.

Thirty-eight years did not disappear in an 11-minute speech — how could they, no matter how eloquent or heartfelt the words? But they changed and morphed, as did David Cameron, who suddenly looked like the leader he believed he would be. From prime minister to statesman.

Joy was the mood in the crowd. A group of women sang “We Shall Overcome.” There was a surprising absence of spleen — this was a community that had been through more than most anyone could understand, showing a restraint no one could imagine. This was a dignified joy, with some well-rehearsed theatrics to underscore the moment.

As well as punching the sky and tearing up the first “Bloody Sunday” inquiry — a whitewash by a judge named Lord Widgery who said the British troops had been provoked — these people were redrawing their own faces from the expected images: from stoic, tight-lipped and vengeful to broad, unpolished, unqualified smiles, unburdened by the bile the world often expects from this geography.

Derry is a community and these Derry people looked like guests at a wedding — formal only for as long as they had to be, careful of their dead but not at all pious. Some began to speak of trials and prosecutions but most wanted to leave that talk for another day.

Figures I had learned to loathe as a self-righteous student of nonviolence in the ’70s and ’80s behaved with a grace that left me embarrassed over my vitriol. For a moment, the other life that Martin McGuinness could have had seemed to appear in his face: a commander of the Irish Republican Army that day in 1972, he looked last week like the fly fisherman he is, not the gunman he became ... a school teacher, not a terrorist ... a first-class deputy first minister.

Both Mr. McGuinness and Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, seemed deliberately to avoid contentious language and to try to include the dead of other communities in the reverence of the occasion. Though a few on the unionist side complained that the $280 million spent on the inquiry, commissioned by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998 and led by Lord Saville, a top judge, could have been used to improve Northern Ireland’s schools or investigate unionist losses, they mostly accepted the wording of the report that the deaths were “wrong” and “unjustified”; Protestant clergymen spoke of “healing” and held meetings with families of the victims.

Healing is kind of a corny word but it’s peculiarly appropriate here; wounds don’t easily heal if they are not out in the open. The Saville report brought openness — clarity — because at its core, it accorded all the people involved in the calamity their proper role.

The lost lives rose up from being statistics in documents in the Foreign Office to live once again. On the television news, we saw them ... the exact time, the place, the commonplace things they were doing ... William Nash, age 19, shot in the chest at close range, his father wounded trying to reach him ... William McKinney, age 26, shot in the back while tending the wounded ... Jim Wray, age 22, shot twice, the second round fired into his back while he was lying on the ground outside his grandparents’ house. We saw their faces in old photographs, smiles from 38 years ago ... the ordinary details of their ordinary and, as Lord Saville repeatedly pointed out, entirely innocent lives.

It’s not just the Devil who’s in the details ... God, it turns out, is in there too. Daylight ...

Even the soldiers seemed to want the truth to be out. In the new report, some contradicted statements they had been ordered to make for the Widgery report.

It is easily forgotten that the British Army arrived in Northern Ireland ostensibly to protect the Catholic minority.

How quickly things can change.

In just a couple of years, the scenes of soldiers playing soccer with local youths or sharing ice creams and flirting with the colleens had been replaced by slammed doors on house-to-house raids ... the protectors had become the enemy ... it was that quick in Derry.

In fact, it can be that quick everywhere. If there are any lessons for the world from this piece of Irish history ... for Baghdad ... for Kandahar ... it’s this: things are quick to change for the worse and slow to change for the better, but they can. They really can. It takes years of false starts, heartbreaks and backslides and, most tragically, more killings. But visionaries and risk-takers and, let’s just say it, heroes on all sides can bring us back to the point where change becomes not only possible again, but inevitable.

•

A footnote (some light relief), November 1983:

U2 is in a studio in Dublin, playing its new song, “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” to the record company. The melody is a good one but the lyric is, in hindsight, an inarticulate speech of the heart. It’s a small song that tries but fails to contrast big ideas ... atonement with forgiveness ... “Bloody Sunday” with Easter Sunday. The song will be sung wherever there are rock fans with mullets and rage, from Sarajevo to Tehran. Over time, the lyric will change and grow. But here, with the Cockneyed record company boss at the song’s birth, the maternity ward goes quiet when the man announces that the baby is “a hit”... with one caveat: “Drop the ‘bloody.’ ‘Bloody’ won’t bloody work on the radio.”

Bono, the lead singer of the band U2 and a co-founder of the advocacy group ONE and (Product)RED, is a contributing columnist for The Times.

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Obama, the Thin-Skinned President

In their book "The Battle for America 2008," Haynes Johnson and Dan Balz wrote this:

[Chief political aide David] Axelrod also warned that Obama's confessions of youthful drug use, described in his memoir, Dreams From My Father, would be used against him. "This is more than an unpleasant inconvenience," he wrote. "It goes to your willingness and ability to put up with something you have never experienced on a sustained basis: criticism. At the risk of triggering the very reaction that concerns me, I don't know if you are Muhammad Ali or Floyd Patterson when it comes to taking a punch. You care far too much what is written and said about you. You don't relish combat when it becomes personal and nasty. When the largely irrelevant Alan Keyes attacked you, you flinched," he said of Obama's 2004 U.S. Senate opponent.

I thought of this memo after reading the comment by Sen. Pat Roberts after he and other Senate Republicans had a contentious 80-minute meeting with the president on Tuesday. "He needs to take a Valium before he comes in and talks to Republicans," Roberts said. "He's pretty thin-skinned."

Sen. Roberts is being too generous. Obama is among the most thin-skinned presidents we have had, and we see evidence of it in every possible venue imaginable, from one-on-one interviews to press conferences, from extemporaneous remarks to set speeches.

The president is constantly complaining about what others are saying about him. He is upset at Fox News, and conservative talk radio, and Republicans, and people carrying unflattering posters of him. He gets upset when his avalanche of faulty facts are challenged, like on health care. He gets upset when he is called on his hypocrisy, on everything from breaking his promise not to hire lobbyists in the White House to broadcasting health care meetings on C-SPAN to not curtailing earmarks to failing in his promises of transparency and bipartisanship.

In Obama's eyes, he is always the aggrieved, always the violated, always the victim of some injustice. He is America's virtuous and valorous hero, a man of unusually pure motives and uncommon wisdom, under assault by the forces of darkness.

It is all so darn unfair.

Not surprisingly, Obama's thin skin leads to self pity. As Daniel Halper of The Weekly Standard pointed out, in a fundraising event for Sen. Barbara Boxer, Obama said,

Let's face it: this has been the toughest year and a half since any year and a half since the 1930s.

Really, now? Worse than the period surrounding December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001? Worse than what Gerald Ford faced after the resignation of Richard Nixon and Watergate, which constituted the worse constitutional scandal in our history and tore the country apart? Worse than what Ronald Reagan faced after Jimmy Carter (when interest rates were 22 percent, inflation was more than 13 percent, and Reagan faced something entirely new under the sun, "stagflation")? Worse than 1968, when Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were assassinated and there was rioting in our streets? Worse than what LBJ faced during Vietnam -- a war which eventually claimed more than 58,000 lives? Worse than what John Kennedy faced in the Bay of Pigs and in the Cuban Missile Crisis, when we and the Soviet Union edged up to the brink of nuclear war? Worse than what Franklin Roosevelt faced on the eve of the Normandy invasion? Worse than what Bush faced in Iraq in 2006, when that nation was on the edge of civil war, or when the financial system collapsed in the last months of his presidency? Worse than what Truman faced in defeating imperial Japan, in reconstructing post-war Europe, and in responding to North Korea's invasion of South Korea?

In his autobiography "Present at the Creation," Dean Acheson wrote about the immensity of the task the Truman administration faced after war ended in 1945, which "only slowly revealed itself. As it did so, it began to appear as just a bit less formidable than that described in the first chapter of Genesis. That was to create a world out of chaos; ours, to create half a world, a free half, out of the same material without blowing the whole to pieces in the process."

For Obama to complain that the problems he faces are so much worse than any other president in the last 80 years is stunningly self-indulgent, to say nothing of ahistorical.

With Obama there is also the compulsive need to admonish others, to point fingers, to say that the problems he faces are not of his doing. Oh, sure; on occasions there are the grudging concessions, like in Thursday's press conference devoted to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, where Obama says, "In case you're wondering who's responsible, I take responsibility" to ensure that "everything is done to shut this down." But those words are always pro forma, done reluctantly and for tactical political reasons, a rhetorical trick that is meant to get him off the hook. As recently as last week, Obama, in the Rose Garden, was implicitly blaming the previous occupant of the White House for the explosion of the offshore rig Deepwater Horizon [Obama remarks linked here].

The president's instincts are by now obvious to all: deflect blame, point fingers, and lash out at others, most especially his predecessor. We know from press reports (see here and here) that the strategy for the Democrats in 2010, two years after Obama was elected president, is to – you guessed it – blame George W. Bush.

What explains all this is hard to know. But it's clear he has adopted an image of himself as something rare and remarkable, a historic figure of almost super-human abilities. "I am absolutely certain that generations from now," Obama said during the summer of his presidential run, "we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth."

"We are the ones we have been waiting for," Obama and his aides said constantly during the campaign.

President Obama's more unattractive personal qualities probably won't wear well with the electorate. Americans tend to tire of those who are look back rather than ahead and are always blaming others for the problems they face.

Barack Obama -- a man who was as unprepared to be president as any man in our lifetime -- has over the last 16 months shown that he is overmatched by events. His poll numbers continue to drop, his health care proposal is becoming less rather than more popular, the oil spill in the Gulf is badly eroding his image for leadership and competence, and his party has been battered in election after election since November. We have now reached the point where Democrats are running against Obama and his agenda in order to survive (witness Mark Critz in Pennsylvania).

We can hope that Obama, an intelligent man, learns from the errors of his ways. But the great danger in all of this is that in the face of his troubles Obama and his aides become increasingly defensive, display a greater sense of entitlement and even a touch of paranoia. When arrogant men lose control of events it can easily lead to feelings of isolation, to striking out at critics, to bullying opponents, and to straying across lines that should not be crossed.

And so the president needs to surround himself with people who can tamp down on the uglier impulses within his administration, who are willing to tell Obama that the lore created by him, Axelrod, Plouffe, and Gibbs during the campaign has given way to reality, that cockiness is not the same as wisdom, and that spin is no substitute for substantive achievements. And Obama needs someone who has standing in his life to tell him that the presidency is a revered institution that should not be treated as if it were a ward in Chicago.

The ingredients are in place for some serious problems down the road. Those who care for the president need to recognize the warning signs now, sooner rather later, before it becomes too late, for him and for the nation.