of the administration. they went out and announceddedded in june they were going to undertake a pr offensive to convince the american people how good the economy was in is a result of bad mistakes in policy bad bill that was poorly crafted, ill-conceived and badly executed. the stimulus will spend more money between 2011 and 2019 than it spent in 2009 when we were trying to stimulate the economy. you are right cries teen romer issued a report that said if we did nothing unemployment is going to rise to near 10% and remain throughout 2009 and 2010. if we pass the stimulus bill bay the end of the summer of 2009 unemployment would top out at 8% and decline rapidly thereforeafter. she may be again but the other person who wrote that report, bernstein is still around as is romer s colleague.
harper s magazine. thanks for being here. thanks, rachel. great to be back. first, i want to get your reaction to the family s reaction to you. the family s pr offensive. it seems strange that they would be developing a website. you know, 75 years of secrecy and denying your own existence and confronted with your culpability and all kinds of things, ranging from sex scandals to possibly genocideal bills in africa, got to do something. so a website, that s where they re starting. it s a small first step. the family has been working in the background of international politics and american politics for decades now, as you have documented. and every now and again, over the decades, stories about them surface. but usually they are dropped and forgotten about. what do you make of the cyclical nature of the coverage of this group? well, it speaks to the kind of sort of limited
first, i want to get your reaction to the family s reaction to you. the family s pr offensive. it seems strange that they would be developing a website. you know, 75 years of secrecy and denying your own existence and confronted with your culpability and all kinds of things, ranging from sex scandals to possibly genocidal bills in africa, so you got to do something. so a website, that s where they re starting. it s a small first step. the family has been working in the background of international politics and american politics for decades now, as you have documented. and every now and then over the years, stories about them surface. but usually they are dropped and forgotten about. what do you make of the cyclical nature of the coverage of this group? well, it speaks to the kind of sort of limited understanding, i think, of corruption that we function within the press. we understand a scandal when it
these guys doing public relations for themselves is like the wicked witch of the west hosting a swim party or the slugs moving to the salt flats. it s complete empathetical to who they are. but because of jeff s new books, they ve started giving reporters, reporters who are definitely not jeff sharlet, lots of access to their leaders. lots of access to write friendly whitewashes, like this giant puff piece that was published in the new yorker this month. one of the things we did learn in that puff piece is that the family is also apparently launching a website for the first time. a website for their secret group. presumably the url will be written in some sort of you are the chosen people hieroglyphics. joining us now for the interview is jeff sharlet. his new book is called c street: the fundamentalist threat to american democracy, also a contributing editor to harper s magazine. jeff, congratulations on the new book. thanks for being here. thanks, rachel. it s great to be bac
ahamadinejad addresses the united nations general assembly. organizers say they hope to bring 20,000 people into the streets. this week in new york, ahamadinejad is on a pr offensive, addressing a session on tackling world poverty, giving interviews, trying to prove he s not the monster his critics make him out to be. telling abc news that after he helped free american hiker sarah s shourd, there should be payback from president obama. translator: it should not be misplaced to ask that the u.s. government make a gesture to release the iranians who were illegally arrested. reporter: the u.s. says those cases have nothing to do with each other. for the obama administration, the real showdown here is over iran s nuclear program. president obama told a cnbc town hall he s hoping tough sanctions