White House: Pentagon Propaganda Program Similar To Writing For A ‘Liberal Blog’
White House: Pentagon Propaganda Program Similar To Writing For A ‘Liberal Blog’
Earlier this month, the Pentagon released a document dump in response to the New York Times’s expose on its military analyst program. The documents raise questions about White House involvement in the program, which it previously denied.
For example, a March 16, 2006 e-mail from a Pentagon staffer said he or she was “hoping to have Hadley brief these guys [military analysts] next week,” referring to National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Pentagon official Dallas Lawrence added, “Id love to see if we ocould get them in with potus as well. (I think that was submitted to karl and company…last week),” suggesting involvement in the program from then-Bush adviser Karl Rove.
In today’s White House briefing, a reporter asked spokesperson Scott Stanzel about these e-mails and meetings. Without denying White House involvement, Stanzel defended the program, saying it is the equivalent of giving information to someone who writes for a “liberal blog”:
But it’s not unusual for administration officials to brief people who are talking about our plans and our policies… just like I’m standing here answering your question and you go out on your liberal blog and talk about, you know, the way that you see things, we brief people who talk about the president’s policies.
Watch it:
As the reporter noted, however, the White House’s meetings with Pentagon officials and military analysts were “kept secret.” In contrast, the White House press briefings where the “liberal” reporter receives his information are available on cable television. “You can talk to the Defense Department. It was their program,” said Stanzel when asked why the meetings were not public.
Stanzel also ignored the fact that the military analysts often had “ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess.” A Fox analyst, for example, was “seeking contracts worth tens of millions” of dollars while giving on-air assessments of the Iraq war. Liberal bloggers, on the other hand, generally do not have multi-million dollar government contracts at stake in their writing.
Transcript:
QUESTION: The White House has denied that it knew about the Pentagon program that used TV military analysts…
STANZEL: We’ve been through this before. Do you have a question?
QUESTION: Yes, there’s something new.
Last week e-mails surfaced that showed that Pentagon officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, communicated with White House officials, including Karl Rove and Stephen Hadley, about the program. One e- mail, written by a Pentagon official, mentions that Rove was approached about arranging a meeting between the military analysts and the president. My question…
STANZEL: And your question is?
STANZEL: Well, the idea that people in the administration would brief people who were talking to reporters about our programs and our policies doesn’t seem like to be that far-fetched of an idea to me.
QUESTION: Secret, though.
STANZEL: So in terms of the e-mails, I haven’t been monitoring the staff e-mails here, so I can’t tell you what their conversations were like.
But it’s not unusual for administration officials to brief people who are talking about our plans and our policies, much like I’m standing here today briefing all of you…
QUESTION: Right, why was the program…
STANZEL: … just like I’m standing here answering your question and you go out on your liberal blog and talk about, you know, the way that you see things, we brief people who talk about the president’s policies.
QUESTION: Why was the program kept secret?
STANZEL: You can talk to the Defense Department. It was their program, which they’ve discontinued.
QUESTION: Who was in charge…
STANZEL: Yes?
QUESTION: … of the White House?
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The truth is like kryptonite to the administration.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:04 pmThe truth will set your free! I wonder how many showers per day Stanzel and Perino must take to keep the stench of their jobs from overpowering them. Can a person lie to the planet and still go to heaven? I don’t think so.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:08 pmRe: “we brief people who talk about the president’s policies.” But when you do it with military / ex-military in a coordinated effort to sway public policy it’s called propaganda (for domestic, not foreign consumption) and is against US law (not that this fact has stopped the Unitary Executive).
May 19th, 2008 at 5:08 pmOh man oh man. As a liberal blogger, I can’t wait for one of them multimillion dollar Pentagon contracts they’re gonna start handing out!
May 19th, 2008 at 5:10 pmhussein toasterhead Says:
Oh man oh man. As a liberal blogger, I can’t wait for one of them multimillion dollar Pentagon contracts they’re gonna start handing out!
Me first, me first!
May 19th, 2008 at 5:12 pmWhere is Dana (Katie Couric’s mini-me) Purina when we need her? This guy can’t even lie as well as she can. Takes all the fun out of it!
May 19th, 2008 at 5:16 pmWhat surprises me is Not the Evasive answer, but the fact that “Reporters” are still asking about it.
I think the News Media is reacting to “Blog Pressure”.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:25 pmI am just dumbfounded and slackjawed by this administration and how stupid they think we must be. Do they honestly believe we can’t see a difference between a press briefing (available to all the media outlets and often broadcast on cable) and a secret propaganda session with carefully hand-picked propaganda catapulters who have stated their intent to obediently shill for the propagandists?
November can’t come soon enough.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:28 pmThese guys love to project, accusing others of disseminating propaganda, looking for “voter fraud”, etc.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:36 pmthe Pentagon Propaganda program is not like a blog at all.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:40 pmIt is a blatently ILLEGAl program, while a blog is legal.
You must understand that when a winger says the word “liberal” he’s just having a brain spasm.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:42 pmIt’s got electrolytes. It’s got what plants need.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:43 pmCompletely OT, & I apologize if this has been posted before- Fired US Attorney David Iglesias is beginning a series of book events for his book on the USA firings. Book is called “In Justice: Inside the Scandal that Rocked the Bush Administration.”
Here are the places and dates Iglesias will give talks on the book & do book signings, if anyone here is interested to attend:
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-301449.html?authorNm=David+Iglesias&location=&month=&x=19&y=5
May 19th, 2008 at 5:49 pmWill the last Repug to leave the Party please set up the Roach Motel and rat traps?
May 19th, 2008 at 5:50 pmThat’s a gigantic, steaming, smelly pile of horsecrap, ain’t it??
May 19th, 2008 at 5:51 pmIT’S THE LIBERAL BLOGOSPHERE’S FAULT?!?!?!?!
That might even be better than “Clinton did it, too.” These guys really can’t believe this stuff, can they?
May 19th, 2008 at 5:52 pmContrary to un-popular belief, (and straight up ignorance, stupidity, etc..) there are liberals in the U.S. Military. We’re not just some dumbass voting bloc that goes along with the Chickenhawks. And those “patriot” Generals, Colonels, CSM’s (Command Sergants Major) that parrot the NeoCons and others, forgot what it was like to be a Soldier a long time ago, and have profits and seats as CEO’s on the brain.
RIP
May 19th, 2008 at 6:11 pmSGT Stephen R. Sherman
C CO 1-5 IN (STRYKER)
KIA 3 Feb 2005
Mosul, Iraq
When the last one leaves all the rats and roaches will be gone.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:15 pmYou tell them Tired of Fighting. We know that, the Rethugs choose to ignore that fact along with almost every other fact.
Thank you for your service.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:17 pmWell, I’m off to my super secret Defunkt department briefing, so I can come back to this liberal blog and write about it.
Lessee, is my huge payoff check from the defunkt contractor in the mail today>?
May 19th, 2008 at 6:19 pmShayne Says:
——————————————————————————–
You tell them Tired of Fighting. We know that, the Rethugs choose to ignore that fact along with almost every other fact.
Thank you for your service.
It is “OUR” pleasure to serve the informed.
RIP
May 19th, 2008 at 6:23 pmSGT Stephen R. Sherman
C CO 1-5 IN (STRYKER)
KIA 3 Feb 2005
Mosul, Iraq
But it’s not unusual for administration officials to brief people who are talking about our plans and our policies… just like I’m standing here answering your question and you go out on your liberal blog and talk about, you know, the way that you see things, we brief people who talk about the president’s policies.
Those here are not coached on what to say , Hansel and Stanzel ; they can respond in the manner that THEY CHOOSE TO.
Can anyone in the garbage Chimpy administration make a similar type of claim ?
Not bloody likely…………
May 19th, 2008 at 6:30 pmThanks so much Tired of Fighting. And it would be OUR please to pay for all the benefits veterans deserve, the benefits Sen. Webb is fighting for that is.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:30 pmso let me get this straight…
…the PRODUCT of a multi-million dollar ‘information program’ (funded in part by liberal tax-payer dollars) under the control of a Republican Executive for the express purpose of promoting a specific political agenda, with special access to the mass media, and without acknowledgement of either Administration management or the relevant financial interests of supposedly ‘independent’ and ‘apolitical’ spokespersons is the SAME and AS INFLUENTIA as the PRODUCT of a typical liberal blogger who gets an average of 3 comments per necessarily intermittent post?
Riiiight.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:33 pmAh, nothing like another White House press conference with WH spokesperson getting the “Go Conservatives, Go” chant going. Does anyone else think they should just put a monkey out there for these pressers? At least the monkey putting it’s foot in it’s mouth and throwing the feces around would be entertaining. Grown men and women doing this for the sake of a president who flunked fifth grade English and a VP who was probably the basis for Emperor Palpatine and has tatoos of pentagrams on his heart and all his limbs is going to get them what…a shiny reference on the application to the check cashing/foreclosure vulturing places come the end of January ‘09?
May 19th, 2008 at 6:49 pmIs that why most of the trolls are gone now? They have been found out and the Pentagon has stopped paying them?
May 19th, 2008 at 6:50 pmOK all you leftie bloggers fess up…how many of you are bidding on multi-million dollar contracts with the pentagon. Every time I think they’ve gone as far as they can go…the go further.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:55 pmAnnie @#29 — See my #22 {:>}
May 19th, 2008 at 7:00 pmI’m developing a gene splicing technique that will cause cactus spines to emerge from the keyboards of liberals.
May 19th, 2008 at 7:19 pmI figure I can get a couple of million out of the Pentagon with just a few sketches on a legal pad.
Nevar, I wonder if they’d be interested in a LibSnarkoMeter…?
May 19th, 2008 at 8:32 pmQuite possibly.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:50 pmTheir obvious lack of a sense of humor makes it difficult to know when we are just kidding, and when we’re really serious…
Set the filter on high when you send it to them, we wouldn’t want to blow their little pea-brains all at once.
I seem to notice something. Whenever these talking heads are asked a tough question they take a big drink from a paper cup. Any guesses what’s in the cup????
May 19th, 2008 at 8:51 pmAny guesses what’s in the cup????
The stock, prepared response is written on the inside wall of the cup.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:56 pmGo to the video link of airhead purina next to this idiot and you will see what I mean. It even looks like the same cup.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:01 pmExcellent observation, specialist f, these spokespersons are trained down to the minutest detail. It may well be a mnemonic device they use to drag up the prepared nonsense response.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:24 pmTaking the time to hide the face behind a cup creates the composure which allows them to tell the lie with a straight face.
These people are actors, first and foremost, they are not thinkers. Their masters do not want thinking people representing them. It is far to dangerous.
Agreed Nevar, they are like androids with a continual loop of the same prerecorded talking points. It’s sad really to think that there are some sheeple who still fall for it. :(
May 19th, 2008 at 9:29 pmThey sure work hard to spread “democracy” in the World . . . how about a little over HERE.
When Quakers and Move On can match the salaries at Haliburton, Exxon, Blackwater, Boeing, McDonald-Douglas or Charter Arms, we may see a shift in the “retired military expert opinions” being passed around like a Jamaican fattie . . .
May 19th, 2008 at 11:31 pmNotice! Facts are “liberal” and “the way you speak”…not FACTS! Notice this? When factual news makes them look bad, it’s not news…it’s “liberal” and “the way YOU see things”!
May 20th, 2008 at 12:16 ammisshusseinmolly Says:
I am just dumbfounded and slackjawed by this administration and how stupid they think we must be.
It does not matter what intelligent, compassionate, and creative people think. What matters to them are what fundamentalists, militarists, corporatists, and Zionists think.
May 20th, 2008 at 12:30 amWatch azz-muffin John McCain and his straight Talk’n Express derail: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c
May 20th, 2008 at 1:52 amHere’s what blogging is like in the Middle East.
May 20th, 2008 at 11:14 am