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• Sunday, May 11, 2008 06:57 AM

  Left Wing Foamer

  That's a good description of John Stauber in the PBS piece. I'm confident he'll never be asked to comment there again.

  JUDY WOODRUFF: John Stauber, just to understand, are you saying that if what these analysts were doing at the Pentagon had been fully disclosed, if their business connections with the defense contractors had been fully disclosed, would that have made what they did acceptable, in that the audience watching these interviews would have been aware?

  JOHN STAUBER: No, not at all. The full disclosure actually came about this Sunday, and actually it's only partial disclosure. And that disclosure is that -- and the New York Times is the only news organization in full possession of these documents -- the Pentagon military analyst program began with Donald Rumsfeld and Torie Clark.

  Seventy-five-plus former military officers were recruited. And they delivered the talking points of the Bush administration to manage the news media coverage and public opinion of the war.

  The flow wasn't from journalists knocking on the door of the Pentagon and saying, "Excuse me, Admiral, I'd like to ask a question. First question: Are you retired and do you work for military contractors?" That would be -- that's totally fine.

  The flow was illegal government propaganda, recruiting these people, and inserting them into the news, and then hiring a company to measure and quantify how good a job they did of selling the war and managing press and public opinion. This is Goebbels-like. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june08/tvgenerals_04-24.html

  Complete with a Nazi reference and self contradiction. What a hoot. Please, I invite all to read this. I wish it were available on video.

  —shooter242 Read shooter242's other letters
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