RE, "We tend to suck at PR, but now's the time get that act together." What would you think about outsourcing that to Madison avenue? Like a lot of other things, when government tries to do things, it cannot match the expertise of private effort. To say that we suck at PR is funny. We invented it. The government sucks because they don't have to compete in the bidding wars that produce the ads for superbowl Sunday.
You suggestion is probably the most effective method I've heard yet. Get the professional ad industry into launching a campaign on the negative impacts of suicide attacks on Muslims, and denoucing. Even if we paid top dollar for the ads, it would be the best tax money we ever spent.
When I say 'we are bad at PR', I mean the government. Our efforts in Iraq have been clumsy and ineffective. Were we to mobilize the first stringers and make some sophisticated, top notch media campaigns, we'd make some progress in getting that message out.