The Bush PR machine runs amok, via Business Wire.

Newspapers, many of them in crucial swing states, recently received identical letters to the editor purportedly submitted by soldiers serving in Iraq. These letters contain exactly the same message employed by the Bush administration in their new PR campaign on Iraq.

Mike Lux, president of American Family Voices and Democratic strategist, has observed that each letter is identical and none of the soldiers whose names appeared in print were the one to pen the letter. One soldier had never even read the letter, much less signed it and mailed it home. The letters have appeared in key battleground states for the 2004 election: Washington, California, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York. One letter was sent to Olympia, Washington, a major swing state in presidential politics, even though the soldier now resides in Idaho, a Republican stronghold, and considers it home.

These letters appear at a time when the Bush administration is engaged in a wide-ranging campaign to regain public support for the Iraqi occupation. The message points contained in the letters mirror White House message points urging for greater support of the Iraqi effort.

Apparently, the White House hasn’t learned what every college student knows: you have to change the wording if you want to get away with cheating.