Freedom’s Watch Test Marketing the Right Slogan to Sell You a War

Laura Rozen has the scoop [see update below] on how Ari Fleischer’s Freedom’s Watch The Israel Project has been hard at work test marketing the right message that could be used to convince you that we need a war with Iran.

Laura Sonnenmark … drove to the offices of Martin Focus Groups in Alexandria, Virginia, knowing she would be paid $150 for two hours of her time. After joining a half dozen other women in a conference room, she found, to her surprise, that she had been called in to help some of the country’s most prominent hawks test-market language that could be used to sell a war against Iran to the American public. “The whole basis of the whole thing was, ‘we’re going to go into Iran and what do we have to do to get you guys to along with it,’” Sonnenmark, 49, tells Mother Jones.

The client paying for the focus group session, according to Sonnemark, was Freedom’s Watch …read on

Update: Firedoglake

After the MJ article came out, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi of the right-wing group The Israel Project stepped forward to say that her outfit and not Ari's had funded the focus group. But she really must like Ari's group a lot to let them hand out flyers and other goodies at her focus-group sessions.

That's a good point. Besides both obviously wanting a war with Iran, how affiliated are the two groups? And what do these Reps and Sens think about their group testing the waters for a slogan to sell us a war?

The Israel Project Board of Advisers

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-GA, Sen. Norm Coleman, R-MN, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-FL, Sen. Rick Santorum, R-PA, Sen. Arlen Spector, R-PA, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, Rep. Rob Andrews, D-NJ, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-NV, Rep. Tom Davis, R-VA, Rep. Eliot Engel, D-NY, Rep. Frank Pallone, D-NJ, Rep. Jon Porter, R-NV, Rep. Jim Saxton, R-NJ, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-CA, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-SC, Ron Silver, Actor & Director

Also, The Economist took a closer look at an oft cited Ayatollah Khomeini (mis)quote used to bolster an attack on Iran used by neo-con patriarch and Giuliani Middle East adviser Norman Podhoretz, and says “it now appears likely that this quote is bogus.” Sullivan has more.