A previous posting on this blog took a critical look at the PR missteps of someone I initially admired for her brave and steadfast stand against the policies that she blames for her son’s death in Iraq. I’m sorry to report that Ms. Cindy Sheehan’s handlers have led the activist housewife astray with a new publicity pop apparently aimed at rekindling that fleeting fame, but void of the sympathy that made her foray onto the national scene so effective.

She now has aligned herself with Hugo Chavez, the Socialist president of Venezuela, to criticize this President and his policies. It’s strangely reminiscent of Jane Fonda’s trip to Hanoi and how the North Vietnamese government used the actress as a propaganda pawn — something Ms. Fonda ultimately came to regret.

Like Harry Belafonte before her, Ms. Sheehan should have given a little more thought as to whom she could leverage to reassert to her once simple, earnest and effective message. There just seems to be a disconnect between the deployment of Mr. Chavez and Ms. Sheehan’s goals to win over the hearts and minds of most Americans. Where are John Murtha or George Clooney when you really need them, Cindy?

His title: Deputy Assistant Administrator for Public Affairs. His job (in his own words): to preserve “an orderly flow of information…and to avoid surprises.” Dean Acosta of NASA was put on the proverbial hot seat today via a page A1 piece above the fold in The New York Times .

Mr. Acosta was doing his best to counter allegations that the space agency is stifling one of its lead climate scientists, an outspoken critic of the administration’s policy on global warming. “That’s not the way we operate here at NASA. We promote openness and we speak with the facts.”

Later in the piece, Mr. Acosta’s underling and a recent NASA public affairs appointee George Deutsch was said to have responded to a request from NPR for an interview with the scientist by calling the public radio network “the most liberal” media outlet in the country and that his job was “to make the president look good.”

Again, we come back to the question of what is considered good public relations practice today: to command and control key messages or to encourage open conversations with core constituencies? To say one and do another, as appears to be the case here, cannot succeed.

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OK We don’t expect pro athletes to be the most diplomatic bunch around. After all, they’re athletes, not barristers. Still, their growing share of the media spotlight leaves ample room for tainting one’s image.

Take T.O.. He couldn’t leave well enough alone and was thus publicly admonished, then officially banished from The Eagles organization. This week at the Australian Open, Maria Sharapova came this close to a media meltdown at her presser following her loss to Justine Henin-Hardenne.

And just when the controversy seems to have subsided, Bode Miller chooses to take a cue from another bad boy Ron Artest by leveling cheating charges against two other sports icons: Lance and Barry.

Where does this lead? The other week Newsweek took Bode and others to the woodshed on its cover. GQ just published its list of the “Ten Most Hated Athletes.” The Merc-News had a clever piece on “who’s the biggest loser: Artest of Owens?”

I’m a big proponent of media training for anyone whose vocation puts them in the news, but perhaps there are some who should refrain from interviews altogether. On the other hand, we’ve all see how bad behavior can be a career springboard. T.O. just landed a starring role in a new national TV commercial by some exploitive telecom company.

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