DOD Inspector General Wipes Egg Off Face
As soon as the New York Times' David Barstow won a Pulitzer Prize this year for his stories about how the Pentagon co-opted retired military officers who worked as television pundits and analysts, aides to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld started complaining. This is how U.S. News summarized their complaint:
"Does the Pulitzer give prizes for works of fiction? Perhaps they just got the wrong category," says former Pentagon Assistant Secretary Dorrance Smith. Rumsfeld's current spokesman, Keith Urbahn, cites a January 2009 Pentagon inspector general's report debunking the story: "The Times's reporting on DoD's routine outreach to military experts didn't merit a place in the paper, much less a Pulitzer."
Today, Barstow reports that the DOD IG has withdrawn its report that criticized Barstow's article after an internal review found that the report was, in Barstow's words, "so riddled with flaws and inaccuracies that none of its conclusions could be relied upon." This is a major embarrassment for the IG, which is suppossed to be an independent watchdog, not a water carrier. According to Barstow, the IG does not plan do conduct another review of the program because "the public relations program has been terminated and the senior officials who oversaw it have left the Pentagon," leaving unanswered one of the key questions that the flawed IG report had attempted to resolve: Did the DoD program under Rumsfeld violate the U.S. laws prohibiting domestic propoganda?
Rumsfeld is scheduled to publish a memoir in 2010."I don't plan to write any kind of a 'quickie Washington book,' " Rumsfeld said when the book was announced. "I plan to take my time. I expect it (the book) will be very well researched and carefully documented."
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1
Its not a major embarrasment for the media though. Because we all know the problem was the IG report and/or the generals and not media allowing themselves to be used as tools by the government as if its business as usual. Nothing to see here we just let paid spokes people do infomericals posing as news.
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However, that should come as no suprise of course, we all know the press has long ago been captured by the government using the media's over whelming lust for access to power as bait. And as we learn via Fleix Salmon the media is broken in so many ways, this is only going to get worse instead of better.
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http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/05/04/the-power-journalism-nexus/ -
2
Hmmm. Will the teevee msm start to cover this now? Like they did when the Time's reporter received a Pulitzer for his report?
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Oh, wait .... -
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Maybe the Time's reporter's print colleagues will fully back him up and exposed the truth about the teevee media they all can't wait to appear on.
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Oh, wait...... -
4
The national discourse and mood in 2002-2003 can only now be characterized as mass insanity. It's very nice that we are now able to piece by piece, reconstruct what happened and address what went wrong, but where was all this investigation and self-reflection back when it could have done some good?
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And how many people have formally apologized to Natalie Maines?
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And by the way MS, thanks for linking. You seem to be showing a keen interest in the very questions that I still consider important. -
5
I'm VERY confused.
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Barstow broke a story about the Pentagon using ex-generals as on-air shills for their viewpoint. The IG writes a report, ostensibly to find out if the story is true, but turns out to be mainly about discrediting the stories Barstow authored. Subects of the articles use said IG report to ridicule Barstow. Now, the IG report is pulled because it turns out it's a piece of one-sided, unsubstantiated crap.
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Lost in all of this is the supposed original goal of the report - did DOD use retired generals in this way to promote a domestic propaganda program? No ruling on that.
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DOD now says report is crap but they won't issue another because all involved are out of office so we just need to "move on and put all of this behind us". No need for prosecutions.
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Where have I heard this one before? Wait, don't tell me... it'll come to me in minute.
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Aren't they just recycling the scripts? Can't they come up with new material? Jeez... -
6
I like to think I've known some honest politicians, but some days stretch my credulity.
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This also from Massachusetts, where some voluntarily retiring legislators are set to get huge pension payouts:http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/05/03/pension_boost_aids_lawmakers/
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53-3 I noticed that. Which makes it doubly crazy that Republicans think "their" constituents don't really want affordable health care.
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This reminds me that the Republicans have created another epithet for themselves as the "no-empathy party." Can you believe it? "Who would want a justice of the supreme court who has empathy for the downtrodden. we don't!" -
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oops- put that last comment on the wrong post.
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9
I like to think I've known some honest politicians, but some days stretch my credulity.
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kathy,
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I have days like that too and have just two words to help you keep your hopes up - Sheldon Whitehouse.
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Maybe there's hope . . . -
10
Closing HTML tags can be your friend - or your enemy.
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11
Is this the one where the entirety of NBC's coverage of the story was a blog entry by Brian Williams where we wrote, in effect, "trust me, I'm a reporter"?
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12
This is a major embarrassment for the IG, which is suppossed to be an independent watchdog, not a water carrier.
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The fact that the Pentagon IG acted as a water carrier calls into question everything done by the IG's office over the last eight years. Not only is it necessary to investigate how this happened, it becomes crucial to re-evaluate everything that was reviewed by the officials involved in the IG's office who where involved in this cover-up. -
13
...re-evaluate everything that was reviewed by the officials involved in the IG's office...
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plukasiak,
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Substitute DOJ, VA, Interior (or any other number of entities in the government) for IG in the statement above and it STILL stands as true. -
14
So, mates - do ye be thinkin' thar mi' be one o' those IG investigations o' th' US Army's recent Christianist conversion campaign (crusade?) in Afghanistan an' Iraq (if I be rememberin' jcapan's link from yesterday correct-like) blowin' in any time nigh?
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Yarr! -
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[...] Ho! Except now the Office of the Inspector General has pulled the report off its website and repuidated it stating that it was so riddled with errors that no reliable [...]
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16
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/05/023511.php
Seems that there is more to the story . . . . Too bad Michael Scherer didn't tell it.
- michaelscherer Gibbs says Desiree Rogers will not testify tomorrow before House on WH gatecrashers. - 1 hour ago
- michaelscherer Always a bad sign when you (NBC) have to preface every news report (Salahi) with big disclaimers that the parent company is not a factor. - 5 hours ago
- michaelscherer Ah.... Richard Wolffe. - 18 hours ago
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