A look at the sleazy side of the PR underworld
“All the Worst Humans” starts with the FBI knocking on Phil Elwood’s apartment door in Washington D.C. A public relations guru, Elwood’s list of nefarious clients is long. So long, he’s not even sure which dealings have raised the ire of the feds. Could it be his work with Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi and his family, the Assad regime in Syria, or Israeli intelligence? We’ll have to wait for that story to unfold towards the end of his account.
Elwood, a young man initially with no real direction, flunks out of college and ends up in an internship with former New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. It’s during that time spent in the nation’s capital when a dramatic pivot begins. “I’ve gone from bussing tables at a Mexican restaurant in Pittsburgh to rubbing elbows with senators,” writes Elwood. “I never want to leave.” It doesn’t take long for Elwood to drift into the deep end of the PR underworld.
Soon, Elwood is procuring cocaine and hiding large amounts of cash as he babysits Qaddafi’s son and crew during their raucous Las Vegas vacation. His task? Keep their debauchery out of the media so that his firm can boost Qaddafi’s image to achieve the regime’s global aims, like securing the release of one of the Pan Am hijackers that killed 259 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Elwood plays a critical role in securing Qatar as host for the World Cup over the United States by planting a story that lawmakers are not keen on hosting the global soccer event because programs to combat childhood obesity are not funded enough. This idea came to him while watching Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign on a popular daytime television show. At the same time, he saw some obese kids walking by one of his favorite drinking hangouts, and an idea sprung forth. “Fat kids! The answer is fat kids!”
He even buys a lame-duck member of Congress for $10,000 to introduce a resolution before the House that opposes the U.S. as the host site. Since Qatar is their client, it’s a charade to make it look like the U.S. government has a higher commitment to children’s health. He leaks the resolution to an influential reporter who gobbles up the propaganda, essentially printing the entire astroturfed narrative as if it has a groundswell of support. There is even a defunct nonprofit to provide them extra cover. Qatar secures the bid.
“The PR industry is a parasite,” writes Elwood. “It lives off the host, the media.” He explains how PR firms are essentially buying up media companies to do their bidding, and foreign influence and corrupt governments are heavily entangled in it, too. “Their rosters of investors include some of the most blood-soaked money in the world,” writes Elwood.
Elwood continually provides the receipts through his stories. One of the more absurd endeavors is his trip to a very dangerous and volatile Nigeria to serve as PR cover for a corrupt government after hundreds of Chibok school girls were kidnapped by Islamist terrorists in 2014. It doesn’t go well, mostly because the Nigerian government is so corrupt and inept that even a PR guy as skilled as Elwood can’t save their reputation.
Elwood does help to start trade wars and assists the murderous Bashar al-Assad regime receive positive press during the Syrian civil war.
The FBI shows up at his doorstep because of his shady work with an Israeli group staffed with former Mossad spooks, dubbed Psy-Group, that work in the election-influencing space. They allegedly contacted the Trump campaign, which tipped off the Robert Mueller investigation into that probe of the 2016 election.
Elwood cooperates with the FBI and furiously spins and plants stories to keep his name out of the press. Overtaken by his mounting legal troubles and mental health issues, he seriously contemplates suicide. Elwood makes a comeback by doing some good deeds, like highlighting the importance of mental health treatments and the cause for a free Ukraine.
The big takeaway is that, rather than reading his account as merely somebody who is shedding their past sins to come clean, Elwood has provided a service. It’s yet another reminder to consume news with a skeptical and critical eye.
Most important, Elwood’s book is a enlightening narrative into the dark world of D.C. While there are certainly many good people there, so much of our cynical centralized power works against nobler causes.
