The D.C. astroturf [2] specialist Bonner & Associates has been feigning innocence that its employees were forging letters to Congress in an industry-funded attack on the Waxman-Markey climate change bill. But DeSmogBlog researcher Nathanael Baker has turned up a 12-year-old article [3] that shows this kind of questionable public manipulation is old hat in the Bonner offices.
The Ken Silverstein article, from a 1997 edition of Mother Jones, shows that Bonner has been duping American politicians on behalf of everyone from stale cigarette smoke-and-mirrors gang at Philip Morris to the coal barons of the Western Fuels Association.
Silverstein identified two particular tactics: the "virtual petition" in which people are induced to sign a statement (with a release in fine print) only to have their signature scanned and inked onto a petition; and the recruiting of "white hats," in which Bonner engages influential people lobby for their clients without ever identifying the funder - sometimes without being completely open about the nature of the issue on which they were lobbying.
Silverstein's article is well-documented and shows a pattern of deception that, judging from Bonner's own website, [4] seems to make the company proud. The Bonner promise is, essentially, to make politicians think that people care about an issue.
In a way, they have a point: if people really knew what Bonner was up to - and who was paying the bill - they'd care deeply.