Pentagon Insiders & the Media

On April 20th, I wrote about a Pentagon program which duped an all-too dupable media into using former military brass as on-air "experts" while these same "experts" were bought-and-paid for plants for the DOD, and hence for the Bush Administration. This means, of course, that they were actively working against the interests of the American people. The DOD has dumped documents regarding this nefarious scheme into the public record and folks have been pouring over them for the juicy tidbits that further prove just how low our current president and his minions will stoop. Sadly, the bar keeps getting lower.

A TPM story by Paul Kiel detailed one such instance this way.

In our Pentagon military analyst doc dump thread, Kevin H comes up with a beauty. You can see it here.

In the exchange, someone (the name is redacted) emails public relations officials in the Pentagon with news that Jed Babbin, who was deputy undersecretary of defense in President George H.W. Bush's administration and a participant in the analyst program ("one of our military analysts," the emailer calls him), would be guest hosting the Michael Medved radio show. And Babbin wanted to interview Gen. George Casey, then the commanding officer in Iraq. Babbin is the editor of Human Events.

But just in case Pentagon officials were worried that the interview might not be worth doing, the emailer made the case: "this would be a softball interview and the show is 8th or 9th in the nation."

Allison Barber, a Public Affairs official at the Pentagon, responded quickly:

Thanks for sending this.

Just fyi, probably wouldn't put "softball" interview in writing. If that got out it would compromise jed and general casey. [my color to denote quote-within-quote]

The emailer, somewhat chastened, replied "check, check." Not bad advice at all.

Note: As for who this emailer is, it's unclear. The Pentagon redacted email addresses in the release, so it could very well be an official in the public affairs office emailing from a private address. The use of the phrase "our military analysts" certainly suggests that.

One more thing to note on this is that the mainstream media, after being duped all too readily, has yet to report word one on this story. They, too, have little interest in the American public learning the truth.

13 May 2008