Tax dollars at work

Wow. Billmon has done a bit of sleuthing to find out how an obscure PR company scored a $300 million dollar contract to develop a campaign to make the U.S. look good to Iraqis.

That's right. Besides the outrageousness of throwing good money after bad in a hopeless effort among so many hopeless efforts in Iraq, $300 million is an awful lot of money for a PR campaign, whether in tiny Iraq or in the U.S.

But it gets better. Or worse. It seems that the parent company of this little unknown firm is only slightly better known. It turns out that one of the things the company does is "oppo research" for U.S. political candidates. And Billmon has a pretty good idea whose party has been the beneficiary of that research.

Lincoln has developed a unique service which provides campaign managers and their staff with concise actionable information in order to understand their candidate's time and events, media planning, voter interest, issue positions and several other factors . . . This service is restricted and available only to select clients. (emphasis added). [sic]

Moreover, the shady Lincoln group seems to provide a lot of other services that Rumsfeld's Pentagon has been talking about lately.

If Billmon is right, then the Pentagon is not only rewarding -- and richly -- political operatives of the White House, the Pentagon may also be creating black ops organizations that are themselves getting involved in U.S. political campaigns.

I encourage you to read the whole thing, and then tell me I'm a conspiracy nut.