Pentagon Tracks, Rates Reporters "Neutral to Positive"

Ouch!

why won't "stars and stripes" name the reporters who the Pentagon think can be easily manipulated?
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And is there any suggestion that Klein is among those reporters who can be "neutralized" with a few select quotes from Pentagon brass?

MS:
Keep reading the whole story here. It is worth it.

Of course the reason to read the whole thing is that the best quote is the last sentence:

. “It shows utter contempt for the Constitution, which we in the service pledge our lives to defend.”

Of course, this sort of thing has been going on for years and has been well documented, in particular how the Pentagon provided a fully complicit panel of "Retired Generals" to provide positive spin regarding the Iraq war.

What I find most troubling about the entire concept is how it completely disregards what a proper 'mission' for the Pentagon ought to be. After all, the most successful Military imaginable would be one that NEVER has to mobilize. Having to engage in combat represents a failure at the primary mission which is to keep the American people safe.

It's certainly fine that the military might want to brag about their accomplishments. It's certainly OK if they want to engage in recruiting. But to actually propogandize in favor of continued warfare is to have the object of the game utterly ass-backwards!

"Bryan Whitman, and the consulting firm doing the work, the Rendon Group, have been saying things in public that do not match up with the documents the newspaper obtained."

Michael-Please tell me you remember who Bryan Whitman is. If the readers here don't here is a reminder from 2008:

"Last February, Barack Obama told an anecdote of a soldier who was shipped to Afghanistan:

You know, I've heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon -- supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq.

And as a consequence, they didn't have enough ammunition, they didn't have enough humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief. Now, that's a consequence of bad judgment.
The story was true, but many in the traditional media immediately jumped all over that story because John McCain -- and a GOP press hack at the Pentagon said it wasn't true:

NBC, also spoke to the soldier, but gave the McCain campaign the headline it wanted "Pentagon questions Obama's soldier story." NBC quoted Bush appointee/Pentagon flack Bryan Whitman:
"I find that account pretty hard to imagine," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters.

"Despite the stress that we readily acknowledge on the force, one of the things that we do is make sure that all of our units and service members that are going into harm's way are properly trained, equipped and with the leadership to be successful," he said.
Okay, that is so not true. But what else would you expect. Whitman's been flacking at the Pentagon since the Rumsfeld days. Think of all the misinformation and lies he spewed at us.

Whitman not only engaged in partisan politics, he basically lied about the situation in Afghanistan to NBC. Obama's version was accurate. Whitman's wasn't.

Fast forward to July of 2008: Which Pentagon political hack is right smack in the middle of the latest manufactured controversy about Obama's visit to the troops in Germany -- a political controversy being pushed by "The Pentagon"? That's right. Bryan Whitman. Yes, apparently when the press talks about "The Pentagon" they mean Bryan Whitman -- and Whitman was quite happy to stir the pot on this one:

The Pentagon said on Friday that it did not prevent an Obama visit.

"Nobody denied Senator Obama the opportunity to visit our wounded being cared for at Landstuhl. Obviously, as a sitting senator, he has an interest in that and can certainly visit in an official capacity," said Bryan Whitman, a spokesman for the Pentagon, who added that there are "restrictions on what you can do as a candidate for political office, that stems from trying to maintain political neutrality and not have the military involved in politics."

"The senator's staff was informed of the limits on what the military can do with respect to a political campaign and how we could support a senator's visit to Landstuhl and, quite frankly, I expected them to have the visit," Whitman said.
Quite frankly, no one should believe anything Bryan Whitman says on behalf of "The Pentagon." He's a GOP political operative who has done a lot of Bush, Cheney and Rummy's dirty work from his press perch at the Pentagon for years. The guy has no compunction about engaging in politics. And, he's the one pushing this latest fake controversy. In February, Obama was right. Whitman was wrong. Same now.

It must be so easy to work in the Bush administration. Facts don't matter and anything can be said to further the GOP agenda. But, after eight years of this, you'd think a reporter like Dan Balz at the Washington Post would see the political motives behind Bryan Whitman's spin. But, that is clearly asking too much."

http://www.americablog.com/2008/07/bushrumsfeld-political-hack-bryan.html

More on Whitman:

An American journalist and historian who was the first to break the story of a secret Iranian peace overture to the Bush Administration in 2006 alleges that the latest Pentagon encounter between Iranian ships and a Navy vessel was a deliberate fabrication.

The incident, on Jan. 5 in Strait of Hormuz off the Iranian coast, was originally described as a non-event -- then quickly became one in which Iranian boats threatened to "explode" American ships.

At about 4 am on Monday Jan. 7, the commander of the Fifth Fleet issued a news release on an incident with small Iranian boats. According to reporter Gareth Porter, writing in the Asia Times, "the release reported that the Iranian "small boats" had "maneuvered aggressively in close proximity of [sic] the Hopper [the lead ship of the three-ship convoy]. But it did not suggest that the Iranian boats had threatened the boats or that it had nearly resulted in firing on the Iranian boats."

"On the contrary, the release made the US warships handling of the incident sound almost routine," he adds. "'Following standard procedures,' the release said, "Hopper issued warnings, attempted to establish communications with the small boats and conducted evasive maneuvering.'"

No reference was made to a US ship nearly firing on an Iranian vessel, or suggestions that the US ships would "explode," or white boxes dropped into the water in the path of the US fleet.

This press release, however, went ignored by the media, Porter notes. Instead, the focus turned to CNN's Barbara Starr, who touted allegations that military officials told her Iranian boats were carrying out "threatening maneuvers." CBS soon followed up with a story positing that the Persians had dropped white boxes in the water around the American ships.

Starr added that one American boat had been given the order to fire, and the Iranians had moved away just in time.

Porter identifies Bryan Whitman, the Pentagon's top spokesman, as the culprit for the spurious account. Most of Whitman's remarks that formed the basis for Starr's and other stories were drawn from an off the record press briefing that was held on the condition he not be identified as a source.

But, "in an apparent slip-up, however, an Associated Press story that morning cited Whitman as the source for the statement that US ships were about to fire when the Iranian boats turned and moved away - a part of the story that other correspondents had attributed to an unnamed Pentagon official," he writes.

After facing suspicion, the Pentagon released a four-minute, 20-second condensed video clip that appeared to show small Iranian boats swarming around a US Navy vessel. A voice was heard to say, "I am coming to you. ... You will explode after (inaudible) minutes."

In the wake of reports, the Iranians said the footage had been fabricated.

What later emerged was a more complex view of the incident -- that in fact the threatening transmission did not come from the Iranian ships.

On Jan. 13, Pentagon officials said they did not know the source of the radio transmission, backing off a previous claim that it came from one of the boats. The Navy Times said the voice in the audio sounded different from the one belonging to an Iranian officer shown speaking to the cruiser Port Royal over a radio from a small boat in the video released by Iranian authorities.

Some now believe the threats actually emanated from a heckler known as the "Filipino Monkey," likely more than one person, who listens in on ship-to-ship radio traffic and then jumps on the net shouting insults and vile epithets.

Ultimately, other elements of the story swallowed by Pentagon correspondents were also discredited. The commanding officer of a missile cruiser said the white boxes "didn't look threatening."

Fifth Fleet commander Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff denied that his ships had been close to firing on the Iranians. So did destroyer commander Jeffery James.

Porter asked a spokeswoman for the Navy's Fifth Fleet whether or not commanders were upset with Washington's portrayal of the incident.

Lydia Robertson of Fifth Fleet Public Affairs would not comment directly, he wrote. "There is a different perspective over there," Robertson said.

By January 11, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell was already disavowing the story that Whitman had been instrumental in creating only four days earlier. "No one in the military has said that the transmission emanated from those boats," said Morrell.

The other elements of the story given to Pentagon correspondents were also discredited. The commanding officer of the guided missile cruiser Port Royal, Captain David Adler, dismissed the Pentagon's story that he had felt threatened by the dropping of white boxes in the water. Meeting with reporters on Monday, Adler said, "I saw them float by. They didn't look threatening to me."

The naval commanders seemed most determined, however, to scotch the idea that they had been close to firing on the Iranians. Cosgriff, the commander of the Fifth Fleet, denied the story in a press briefing on January 7. A week later, Commander Jeffery James, commander of the destroyer Hopper, told reporters that the Iranians had moved away "before we got to the point where we needed to open fire".

The decision to treat the January 6 incident as evidence of an Iranian threat reveals a chasm between the interests of political officials in Washington and navy officials in the Gulf. Asked whether the navy's reporting of the episode was distorted by Pentagon officials, Lydia Robertson of Fifth Fleet Public Affairs would not comment directly. But she said, "There is a different perspective over there."

Last week, RAW STORY's Nick Juliano spoke with Steven Aftergood, an expert on military secrecy, who has recently published an NSA assessment on a notorious incident during the Vietnam war in which Vietnamese ships were said to have attacked American vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin.

"The parallels (between Tonkin and Hormuz) speak for themselves, but what they say is that even the most basic factual assumptions can be made erroneously [or] can prove to be false," Aftergood, of the Federation of American Scientists, said. "Therefore extreme caution is always appropriate before drawing conclusions ... that might leave to violent conflict. That's almost so obvious that I feel embarrassed saying it, but there is a history of mistaken interpretations of these kinds of encounters that ought to teach us humility."

"It's also surprising that President Bush was permitted to get so far out in front on this issue, even though there were significant uncertainties on what transpired," Aftergood added.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Bogus_Iran_story_was_product_of_0116.html

This has the edge of a "Community Organizing" persona, doesn't it Michael?

"Know your enemies, their strengths and weaknesses". Look at those people closely to see who is with us, who is against us, and who really isn't paying any attention at all.

Obama himself proposed while campaigning; "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

Is this ACORN? Is it STORM /COC?

Why does everything Obama seems to touch go back to one point, some form of Facism? Or is it Oligarchy?, and it most definately reeks of Socialism.

Both of his parents were avowed Communists. Perhaps it is his way of finally getting into the good graces of his parents, to Jeremiah Wright or Louis Farrakhan .

Louis Farrakhan who said "You are the instruments that God is going to use to bring about universal change, and that is why Barack has captured the youth. And he has involved young people in a political process that they didn't care anything about. That's a sign. When the Messiah speaks, the youth will hear, and the Messiah is absolutely speaking."

There seems to be lots of questions these days. Many, many questions.

MS:

This post has a tragicomic Captain Renault element – you seem "shocked, shocked" to learn there's an effort to generate biased coverage of important issues, and the responsible parties rate the susceptibility of reporters to this practice.

I'd make it an even money bet that the GOP has the same rating system for members of the Washington press corps, and I'd bet most of you would be embarrassed to see the list.

MS
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What are the chances that you or JK may actually post something with regard to the leak from Palestinian Legislator Hasan Khreisha on the Obama "peace" initiative draft that he has provided to both the Palestinians and Israelis? This 10 pt. plan can be found at the International Middle East Media Center website (http://www.imemc.org/article/61446), as well as here (http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2009/8/27/14526/1072). Needless to say, it is one of the most blatant pro-Israel, hawkish proposals in the history of the 60 years of conflict. It's physically nauseating to read. Change we can believe in was not supposed to mean change from the intolerable to the downright despicable. Why has the national press not reported on this? MS, break this to the mainstream please...It's more important than any piece you may have written. Do the right thing here, get this info out.

The Pentagon is reviewing the practice of compiling reporter profiles?
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Sure they are. They'll be looking for a way of doing it more effectively and manipulating the press even more than they already do. If the press wasn't so eager to willingly participate and be misled then there wouldn't be such a problem.
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If the press would resort to more investigative journalism and stop just quoting sources that fit their own agendas then we might have a clearer picture of what the truth actually is.
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It really is that simple.

The Pentagon seems to deny things reflexively. Thanks Gunny for providing another perspective.

[...] machine made up of retired generals and just this week stories have emerged about how the Pentagon tracks and rates reporters and favors those who publish favorable stories. An April 28 AP story reported that, “The [...]