Rumsfeld Aide’s Credibility Crumbles As DOD Withdraws IG Report On Pentagon Propaganda Program
Rumsfeld Aide’s Credibility Crumbles As DOD Withdraws IG Report On Pentagon Propaganda Program
Last month, New York Times reporter David Barstow received a Pulitzer Prize for his investigation into how the Bush Pentagon co-opted retired generals in its propaganda efforts. “I take it as an affirmation of the principle that American journalism ought to be fiercely independent,” Barstow told Editor and Publisher upon winning the award.
But Barstow’s award was not positively received by allies of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. On Monday, U.S. News’ Paul Bedard reported that former Pentagon Assistant Secretary Dorrance Smith told him, “Does the Pulitzer give prizes for works of fiction? Perhaps they just got the wrong category.” Current Rumsfeld aide Keith Urbahn went further, citing a January 2009 Pentagon inspector general’s report to attack Barstow’s reporting:
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.” [...]
Says Urbahn: “Between the New York Times and the Pentagon’s inspector general office, it’s pretty clear which is a more credible and non-partisan source.”
Just one day after Urbahn’s intemperate remarks, however, the Pentagon announced that it was withdrawing the IG report because it “did not meet accepted quality standards for an Inspector General work product.” In a memo announcing the withdrawal of the report, Donald M. Horstman, the Pentagon’s deputy inspector general for policy and oversight, told staff “do not continue to rely on its conclusions.”
In the New York Times today, Barstow notes that the report was controversial as soon as it was released, “with some members of Congress calling it a ‘whitewash’ marred by obvious factual errors.” In January ‘09, New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt called the IG report “highly flawed,” noting that it “left its conclusions open to question by erroneously identifying several retired officers as having no ties to military contractors when in fact they did.”
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog Roll
Nice picture. Looks like he was on a bender.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:32 amOn the next Arrested Development, George Michael’s internship with Donald Rumsfeld takes an unexpected turn.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:34 amIsn’t Kieth Urbahn a country star? I’d rather listen to him. Ooops! I just threw up in my mouth a little.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:38 amTo Republicans, everyone is partisan except for them.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:41 amRummy has a cabana boy!?
What the hell for!?
May 6th, 2009 at 11:43 amLooks like Keith is well on his way to being a balding, chubby, oddly sexless middle-aged white male… in other words, your archetypical Republican of the 21th century. No doubt he will develop a fetish for high-powered weapons he couldn’t possibly have any need for or understand how to use properly, BUT… it will be proof of his inherent “manliness”…
May 6th, 2009 at 11:43 amIf republicans dealt with truth, honesty, reality and facts, there would be no republican party. They have to lie because nobody, including them would buy their bs.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:45 amReal men wear pink.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:46 amA pink Lacoste pullover? Please, this picture screams posh little silver spoon son-of-a-rich.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:46 amYeah, the Pentagon is a bastion of truth. Why does Rumsfeld need a spokesperson anyway?
May 6th, 2009 at 11:48 amSo Rummy’s got himself a spokesman. The disgraced war criminal can’t speak for himself? What are you afraid of Rumsfeld? Known unknowns? You can run but you can’t hide Donny boy. The wheels of justice may indeed move achingly slow for many of us but it will catch up to you in the end. Donald Rumsfeld has been lurking in the shadows of DC since the good old Nixon days along with his BFFs Cheney and Wolfowitz. When members of the Nixon Adminisration avoided prison this group of industrious future war criminals became emboldened and learned a huge lesson from the Nixon fiasco….don’t leave an evidence trail. They knew that DC looks after it’s own and rather than being humbled by Nixon’s downfall they continued working their ways up through the ranks of both the Republican Party and the private corporate sector until a point which corporatism, the Republic Party and the neocons formed a super group of war mongering, war profiteering criminals safe in the comfortable notion that they could skirt the law as they wished without consequence. This is precisely the reason that special prosecutors need to be brought in to investigate the Bush Administration. To prevent future Presidents and their Administration officials from breaking the laws and shitting on our Constitution.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:50 amHey — that’s a picture of Karl Rove in 1973 at a frat party, isn’t it???
May 6th, 2009 at 11:50 amI’m guessing he’s also Rummy’s chauffeur, and full release masseuse.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:56 amThe cover ups and white washes will march on and on as long as Obama’s team maintains there is no need for accountability!!!!
May 6th, 2009 at 11:56 amI think the fact that he’s wearing a pink Lacoste shirt says it all.
Must suck to see “your” very own Pentagon turn against you, punk.
PEACE
May 6th, 2009 at 11:57 amNot a lot of love for Keith here, I see…
May 6th, 2009 at 12:00 pmEven by Bush Administration standards, that’s pretty freakin’ embarrassing.
May 6th, 2009 at 12:04 pmThis ex-Senate aide to Mitch McConnell is about 25 years old, though he looks like he’s 16. Rumsfeld’s new format for his “snowflakes.”
May 6th, 2009 at 12:04 pmKeith Urbahn…I’m young, hip and will say whatever I’m paid to say as long as I get promises of becoming the next Eric Cantor.
May 6th, 2009 at 12:16 pmI bet he can’t wait to sell his generation out.
May 6th, 2009 at 12:19 pmectoendomezo Says:
#7..YES!..Why are they so..often..SEXLESS? It is a phenomena worthy of study..perhaps a grant?
____________
Just compare some of your more prominent Republican males, such as Karl Rove, Hans Von Spankovsky, or Keith here, /w their female counterparts – Ann Coulter, Michele Malkin, or Lady McBeth herself, Lynn Cheney.
I think the women would be FAAAAAR more dangerous in a bar room brawl. I have no problem imagining Lynn coming at me w/ a broken bottle, whilst the men would all be hiding safely in a men’s room stall, waiting for the women to take care of the heavy lifting, so to speak.
May 6th, 2009 at 12:30 pmPentagon announced that it was withdrawing the IG report because it “did not meet accepted quality standards for an Inspector General work product.”
Don’t let the facts knock any of your teeth out as it smacks you in the face, dufus…
May 6th, 2009 at 12:46 pmMy first thought when I looked at Urbahn’s picture was – what an arrogant smirk! He’d fit in well at Fake News.
May 6th, 2009 at 12:48 pmyawn…..and the pro-torture parties attempts to re-write history continue!
May 6th, 2009 at 12:54 pmRumsfeld says it shows whether the times or the Pentagon is more reliable.
Pentagon withdraws their report.
Is Rumsfeld gonna admit the Times is more reliable ?
May 6th, 2009 at 1:20 pmSeems to me like the Republicans took a page out of Soviet KGB propaganda book and put it to use! How low can you go??
May 6th, 2009 at 2:22 pmIs that egg I see on that little shit’s (Keith Urban) face. He wears it well!
May 6th, 2009 at 2:45 pmThis is fabulous!!! Thanks so much for this report.
May 6th, 2009 at 4:13 pmUrbahn is cute!
May 6th, 2009 at 5:06 pmThere’s so much more to this story than we even know. We’re being fed little pieces (better than nothing, for now), but the big picture is still fuzzy.
For more info check out my blog, The Scary Files, collecting only the scariest stories in one place, hoping for a pattern to emerge:
http://scaryfiles.bentzine.net/2009/05/defense-department-withdraws-false-report-on-secret-propaganda-program/
May 6th, 2009 at 7:34 pmwhen will these little boys realize they are not in power anymore and that we ALL KNOW they are liars no matter what they say? see more of this Rove/Cheney/McConnell goon (employed 5 months-why?) goon here in his “Engagement Announcement & Photo”
May 7th, 2009 at 8:53 amyou can also google and find his registry info…maybe if we send him a gift he will go away
this just keeps getting better-from a paper he wrote
May 7th, 2009 at 9:48 am“Credibility then, does not have to be based on unbiased fact, but rather, can be formed on a shared opinion that fosters a relationship of trust between the media outlet
and the viewer, reader, listener, or surfer.” The paper’s title is “Reporting the Truth:Media Perceptions, Preferences, and Practices among Young UAE Nationals” Keith M. Urbahn
Public Affairs Office
Embassy of the United States of America
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
July 26, 2004
This report is research prepared for the U.S. Embassy, Abu Dhabi by Summer Intern
Keith Urbahn. Observations, comments, and conclusions do not necessarily represent
the views of the Embassy or the Government of the United States of America.