Senate wants Pentagon to investigate courting of TV analysts

[maddezmom]

Source: The Guardian

The US Senate armed services committee today asked the Pentagon to investigate its practice of courting military analysts on popular TV programmes in order to push positive spin on the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policy.

The promotion of falsely positive views to the TV analysts, most of them retired military officers, was first reported by the New York Times over the weekend.

The Times used 8,000 pages of internal Pentagon documents, extracted from the government via a lawsuit, to expose the wooing of TV personalities.

Carl Levin, the Democratic senator who chairs the armed services committee, asked for an internal probe of the Pentagon's relationship with TV networks in a terse letter to defence secretary Robert Gates.



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/23/usa1?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews

[ToughLuck]

1. Propaganda??? from this administration..come now!

[khaos]

2. duh

they won't do anything about it

[catzies]

3. Thanks Guardian, but still not a peep from US newspapers (exc. theNYT)

n/t

[Lasher]

4. Investigate its self? Can't Levin spell oversight?

What the hell is wrong with a Senate investigation into the matter, with public hearings? Is there no one in the Senate willing to stand up to this administration except one feeble old man who can barely stand?

[magellan]

5. That caught my eye too

Next Levin will be telling mob bosses to investigate their guys for tampering with witnesses.

No, at this point I DON'T have any more respect for those running the Pentagon than I do a crime syndicate.

[Preston120]

6. Sure seems to be a weak response.

Wonder why Sen. Levin couldn't hold a hearing in his own committee? More Smoke and Mirrors.

[ryanmuegge]

9. LOL. Did you expect anything different?

[Ian David]

7. Complicity in war crimes. Put them all on trial at The Hague with Bush. n/t

[ryanmuegge]

8. I just figured everybody who paid attention to the media knew that these guys were political

operatives and pundits, rather than "objective experts."

[nichomachus]

10. A terse letter? If that doesn't work, he will give them a very stern look. n/t