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Please click on over to The Chronic Curmudgeon to read his post titled “Fortune.” Powerful writing based on a powerful and humbling experience that will make you reassess the value you place on your freedom of speech.

This is a shot I caught one day during a family vacation at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. We were at the science museum and my oldest daughter was on stage having some fun with the karaoke machine. I quietly climbed up the back stairs to the balcony of the stage and caught this shot. It was manipulated a bit in Photoshop (added a layer with some blur-multiply, but other than that, nothing else).

Leaving all political views aside for the moment, has President Bush chosen to pursue a strategy that is the polar opposite of even the most basic of PR strategies? The AP has the latest Presidential PR miscue in the fight to give control of U.S. ports to a UAE-based company. No matter how sound his business decision might be, he has to know it cannot outweigh the political price he’s paying.

I got a ping on my instant messenger this past Saturday morning. It was John Patrick, a clear member of the digerati and one of the best clients I’ve ever had as a PR person. However, it wasn’t just any IM. It was John IM’img me from about 40,000 feet somewhere over the Atlantic. He was connected through the plane’s in-flight broadband wi-fi network. Like John says in his keynote speeches, we’ve only seen about 10% of what this Internet thing can do (and we can do with it). Hang onto your seats kids!

Did the Bush administration fire all of its PR counselors? It sure looks like it given their recent round of media missteps. Adding to the stumbles is yesterday’s stop in Dublin, Ohio, where the President outlined his plan to expand health savings accounts. And where better to discuss health? Why, the corporate headquarters of fast-food giant Wendy’s, of course.

What is it about Texans and common sense lately? This past week, the Bush administration gave everyone a primer on what happens when you try to hide bad news. And now Texas-based RadioShack is in the barrel [free registration required] for trying to avoid the issue of its CEO falsifying his educational background.

I’m just going to assume that there’s a crisis communications playbook from the 1950s that everyone in Texas is working off of. It’s the only way to explain the head-in-the-sand denial that companies are operating in a more fluid, more transparent environment today (an environment we can thank another group of Texans for: the boys of Enron).

In the PR fiasco that was the Bush administration’s handling of Vice President Dick Cheney’s hunting accident in Texas this week, did they miss an enormous opportunity to score some points with the media and the American public — two constituencies that have grown increasingly hostile toward this administration?

Here’s the thinking: The Veep accidentally shot his friend and hunting partner. The Veep attempted to avoid the press (most likely against the counsel of his press secretary…a lesson to be learned for today’s CEOs). The press hammered poor Scott McClellan, who obviously is growing frustrated with the Bush administration’s inability to grasp the basics of public relations. No one more so than NBC’s David Gregory. Public pressure forced the VP out of his bunker to address the situation. The White House chose to use Fox News as the sole vehicle for the VP’s interview on the subject.

And that is where they missed a golden opportunity.

Fox News is forever tainted with a perception of bias to the conservatives. Putting the VP on Fox gives the impression to many Americans that the tough questions won’t get asked and that, perhaps, there are questions the administration doesn’t want asked.

Instead, the White House should have given the exclusive to NBC’s Gregory, the man who ended up in a heated exchange with McClellan over continued stonewalling by the administration. By doing so, the American public would have seen a Vice President who doesn’t back away from tough issues and one who has respect for the checks-and-balances inherent in a free press. And that perception would have had a halo effect on the President at a time when he and those around him badly need it.

But they didn’t. And they missed a huge chance to put some points in the win column.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan had one of those days yesterday. By one of those days, I mean the kind where a PR professional knows he’s/she’s going to get asked challenging questions. McClellan’s day at the podium responding to Vice President Dick Cheney’s accidental shooting of a fellow hunter was definitely one of those days.

Watching from the sidelines, I think McClellan will be remembered as one of the better presidential press secretaries. I say this because (a) he’s had to face some of the world’s top reporters often with limited or incorrect information — and fought his “clients” to do the right thing, and (b) because of classy exchanges like yesterday’s with NBC’s David Gregory:

“‘David’s a good guy and a good reporter,’ McClellan added. He said that yesterday was ‘one of those days where I knew exactly what to expect.’”

McClellan took his hits and upheld his respect for the important role journalists play in a free democracy. It is that thick skin and ability to see the bigger picture that, in my mind, makes McClellan (and people like him) professionals.