The Political Voices of Women

Pentagon and Media Conspire To Deceive the American People - by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at The Care2 Election Blog)

Remember this? Pentagon Propaganda and Media Compliance

If so, it’s probably not because you saw it covered on any of the National News programs. This is a story of both our government and our media purposefully deceiving the American people. So…Why aren’t heads rolling? Let’s take a closer look at this issue.  This is from a post at Salon.com

It has now been more than ten days since the New York Times exposed the Pentagon’s domestic propaganda program involving retired generals and, still, not a single major news network has even mentioned the story to their viewers, let alone responded to the numerous questions surrounding their own behavior. This steadfast blackout occurs despite the fact that the Pentagon propaganda program almost certainly violates numerous federal laws; both Democratic presidential candidates sternly denounced the Pentagon’s conduct; and Congressional inquiries are already underway, all of which forced the Pentagon to announce that it suspended its program.

Still, there has not been a peep from the major news networks at the center of the storm, the integrity of whose reporting on the Iraq war is directly implicated by this story. Even establishment media defender Howard Kurtz called their ongoing failure to cover this story “pathetic.”

My take: PATHETIC is right! This whole thing is beyond pathetic, it is a total deception of the American people. Let me see if I can draw a comparison to this. Maybe this is comparable? I remember back when we were all totally duped about Bill Clinton’s sex life, it was a tragic deception to the American people. Well…not really, but you might have thought it was based on the reaction it received. The media raked the man over the coals and congress impeached him, all for cheating on his wife and lying about it. In retrospect, I can really see how Clinton’s lies were directly responsible for two wars, thousands of deaths, and the destruction of our economy. Oh, wait a minute…Clinton wasn’t responsible for those things. But he still lied and deceived the American people. So, on a comparison scale of 1 thru 10 - The Clinton sex scandal is at best a 1 (but had a media reaction of over a 10). On the other hand, this Bush/Pentagon propaganda scandal is off the chart in comparison, but we’ll call it a 10 (with a reaction to it a -1). What is that about?

More from the Salon.com post…

Like Fox and CBS, NBC News outright refused to answer any questions about the allegations when asked by the NYT’s David Bartsow, and its prime time anchor, Brian Williams, has delivered seven broadcasts since the story was published and has not uttered a word to NBC’s viewers about any of it. Yesterday, I wrote about an entry on Williams’ blog — which he calls “The Daily Nightly” — in which Williams found the time to mock one frivolous cultural puff piece after the next in the Sunday edition of the NYT, even as he still had refused even to acknowledge the expose in last Sunday’s NYT that calls into serious question the truthfulness and reliability of his “journalism.”

After I wrote about Williams’ blog item yesterday, his blog was deluged with commenters angrily demanding to know why he has failed to address the NYT expose. In response, Williams wrote a new blog item last night in which he purports — finally — to respond to the story, and I can’t recommend highly enough that it be read by anyone wanting to understand how our establishment journalist class thinks and acts.

The essence of Williams’ response: he did absolutely nothing wrong. Nor did any of the military analysts used by NBC News. Nor did his network. These are all honest, patriotic men whose integrity is beyond reproach. Here’s but a sampling of Williams’ defense…

There is much more to this article, and it’s a must read. You can read full the post at Salon.com

Pentagon Propaganda is Illegal…

Are we surprised that there is yet another charge leveled against the bush administration? No, I didn’t think so. So, here we go with the next charge of abuse leveled at the bush administration, that of propaganda. The laws are quite clear on this issue and have been on the books since 1951. That’s a very long time to have things stated clearly to you. But again, bush and company have flaunted their power saying, “We are untouchable by anyone, even the laws of the land.”

From The Carpetbagger Report…

At yesterday’s White House press briefing, Raw Story reporter Eric Brewer had raised his hand to ask a question for quite a while. Dana Perino ignored him until others intervened, urging Perino to call on him.

Brewer, after noting that the retired officers’ access was cut off if they departed from the Pentagon’s talking points, asked, “[D]id the White House know about and approve of this operation?” Perino responded:

“Look, I didn’t know — look, I think that you guys should take a step back and look at this — look, DOD has made a decision, they’ve decided to stop this program. But I would say that one of the things that we try to do in the administration is get information out to a variety of people so that everybody else can call them and ask their opinion about something.

“And I don’t think that that should be against the law. And I think that it’s absolutely appropriate to provide information to people who are seeking it and are going to be providing their opinions on it. It doesn’t necessarily mean that all of those military analysts ever agreed with the administration. I think you can go back and look and think that a lot of their analysis was pretty tough on the administration. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t talk to people.”

And with that, she abruptly ended the press briefing.

Not surprisingly, there are a few problems with that response — starting with the fact that Perino doesn’t seem to know what the program was all about.

The press secretary’s spin makes it sound quite innocuous. The Defense Department, the White House story goes, was simply “proving information to people who are seeking it.” In turn, those people “provided their opinions on it.” What could possibly be controversial about that?

Also See:

Huffington Post - TV’s Response to Pentagon Propoganda?

Pentagon Propaganda and the Media Stonewall

WriteChic Press - Pentagon Propaganda Plants