That’s Hugh Hewitt’s advice to the spin doctors at PepsiCo. He says that he didn’t think he’d get a lot of feedback but,

I was wrong. Lots and lots of outrage pouring in, and I will open the radio show with a discussion. Seems a lot of people who dug deep for tsunami relief and who have watched hundreds of their country’s soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines die to bring the January 31 elections to Iraq don’t want to be lectured on how America is too often seen as “scratching our nose and sending a far different signal” to the world.

The amount of feedback in both comments and email I have been getting since my critique of Indra Nooyi’s commencement address Columbia University has been very high, including texts of letters or emails sent to PepsiCo by both consumers and shareholders.

Time is running out, says Hugh.

[D]Well, definitely don’t wait. Get the CEO, Stephen Reinemund, on Nightline, O’Reilly, any show that asks, and especially on talk radio. The blunder is the corporate equivalent of Marburg’s, and it needs to be contained. Abject apology followed by abject apology. Decide right now whether Indra Nooyi matters more than a lasting black eye. Think about how P&G is still dealing with the satan nonsense. Think about the brand.

Two hours ago I asked my producer to call PepsiCo and see who would come on. My guess is that they declined the interview, but who knows, they might have someone who sees the pulse.

Hugh also cogently observes,

The graduates certainly got a commencement lesson worth remembering: When you represent a consumer products company, it is best not to insult the largest market in the world, not to mention your home team.

Yep. When you make $5 million per year in direct compensation - making you one of the 12 highest-paid CFOs in America - you’re supposed to be able to craft your words carefully enough not to have to do damage control by insisting you were “miscontrued.” And you can’t pretend you can leave your professional position behind to give a speech. She may as well have “Pepsi” tatooed on her forehead, for if it’s true that “the personal is political,” it’s also true at Ms. Nooyi’s rarefied altitude that the personal is the corporate.

It’s not nearly as hard to total your car as it used to be. The average damage repair now tops $3,000. The increasing use of hard-to-work materials such as aluminum, magnesium and even titanium in autos means that dollar costs of repairs have skyrocketed. It’s expecially expensive to replace air bags and air bag sensors, as much a $1,000 per bag. We may be nearing the era of the disposable car. The Christian Science Monitor has details.

Guess what this is going to do to your insurance premiums.

I previously recommended the milblog Andi’s World to you. Andi is an Army wife - “the toughest job in the Army” goes the old saying - and emailed me with a tip that Linda Foley, president of the 35,000-member Newspaper Guild asserted Friday that U.S. troops deliberately are killing journalists in Iraq. Blogs Andi,

Easongate all over again.

Echoing a claim that led to CNN executive Eason Jordan’s resignation, the president of the 35,000-member Newspaper Guild asserted U.S. troops deliberately are killing journalists in Iraq.

According to a tape of her remarks, Foley said: “Journalists, by the way, are not just being targeted verbally or … ah, or … ah, politically. They are also being targeted for real, um … in places like Iraq. What outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there’s not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq.”

Foley continued, “They target and kill journalists … uh, from other countries, particularly Arab countries like Al -, like Arab news services like al-Jazeera, for example. They actually target them and blow up their studios with impunity. …”

Will they ever learn? Time to get the blogosphere cranking on this. More later.

Democracy Now! features links to audio of the speech and streaming video, which should tell you something. I have unsuccessfully searched for the text of the speech.

The “Easongate” reference is about the controversy over CNN’s chief news executive, Jordan Eason, who said in a public forum at the January 27 World Economic Forum that U.S. forces had deliberately targeted journalists. Eason resigned his position on Feb. 11.

Update: La Shawn Barber tried to call Ms. Foley but the Newspaper Guild isn’t answering the phone (their answering machine claimed - no fooling - that they are the victims of a calling conspiracy). Editor and Publisher says that Ms. Foley is already claiming her speech has been “distorted.” But E&P also includes the verbatim text of what she said relevant to this controversy:

“Journalists are not just being targeted verbally or politically. They are also being targeted for real in places like Iraq. And what outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there’s not more outrage about the number and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq. I think it’s just a scandal.”

“It’s not just U.S. journalists either, by the way. They target and kill journalists from other countries, particularly Arab countries, at news services like Al Jazeera, for example. They actually target them and blow up their studios, with impunity. This is all part of the culture that it is OK to blame the individual journalists, and it just takes the heat off of these media conglomerates that are part of the problem.”

But let us not bother with minor things like evidence. E&P also includes this tidbit:

When asked if she believed U.S. troops had targeted journalists in Iraq, she said, “I was careful of not saying troops, I said U.S. military. Could I have said it differently? There are 100 different ways of saying this, but I’m not sure they would have appeased the right.”

Seems she never heard the adage, “when you get to the bottom, stop digging.”