Bad on the Environment? Need to Look Green on Earth Day? Try LuntzSpeak.Com
Fair Use Statement
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Download: Luntz Research memo (1.5mb PDF format, right-click works best).
Source: Common Dreams.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
APRIL 17, 2003
9:30 AM
CONTACT: National Environmental Trust
Joel Finkelstein, 202-887-1345
Brandon MacGillis, 202-887-8833
Bad on the Environment? Need to Look Green on Earth Day? Try LuntzSpeak.Com Today! Says National Environmental Trust
WASHINGTON - April 17 - The following was released today by the National Environmental Trust:
Are you a member of the Republican leadership or even, possibly, the President of the United States? Is your record on the environment terrible? Is that terrible record making you dread the fast approaching Earth Day like a visit to the dentist? Then maybe it's time you visited LUNTZSPEAK.COM!
LuntzSpeak is the exciting (some would say "sneaky") new way to spin your anti-environmental record, and it has been widely embraced by the Administration and some Republicans in Congress. That's why the National Environmental Trust created LuntzSpeak.Com: so that anyone can learn LuntzSpeak and recognize it when they see it in a press release or hear it in a speech.
"It's not rocket science to say that voters don't trust the President and some members of his party on the environment," said National Environmental Trust President and LuntzSpeak enthusiast Phil Clapp. "After all, this is an administration with only a few bright spots amid a torrent of anti-environmental rollbacks."
"LuntzSpeak represents a major new covert campaign by the Administration and the Republican leadership," Clapp said. "They're trying to dupe the public and the media into thinking a truly awful record on the environment is actually green."
LuntzSpeak is based on a memo by famed Republican pollster Frank Luntz, architect of the Contract With America. Luntz is concerned that "the environment is probably the single issue on which Republicans in general -- and President Bush in particular -- are most vulnerable." Unfortunately for Luntz, the Environmental Working Group gave the memo to the New York Times.
"If you look at what leading Congressional Republicans and Administration officials have been saying in recent months, it's clear that the Luntz memo is being treated like Gospel," Clapp said. "What we've done at LuntzSpeak.Com is collect examples of this spin in action, and laid out the tools to help you see through it."
To kick off its new effort to get out the word about LuntzSpeak, the National Environmental Trust is:
-- Launching LuntzSpeak.Com; -- Running a paid media campaign advertising LuntzSpeak.Com; -- Sending out free "LuntzSpeak Decoder Rings" to journalists and opinion leaders; and -- Announcing the first winner of the Luntzie Award, for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of LuntzSpeak.
For more information, visit LuntzSpeak.Com today!
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Download: Luntz Research memo (1.5mb PDF format, right-click works best).
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