On the Health of the Republic

The embarrassment that passes for investigative journalism in the United States tried as hard as it could to bury the Pentagon Papers on the Iraq war. In case you missed, and you would have if you received your news from any of the major outlets, the Pentagon planted and paid for a number of former brass to sound off in support of Gen. Petraeus' last act before Congress to push the idea that the tide truly was turning. In a concerted effort, across all the major and minor networks, the Pentagon had paid agents acting as network "experts" to talk about their view of the Petraeus hearings and what they meant about how well things were progressing in Iraq. There are several good stories on this, but this one really chronicles the arc of deception exercised by this administration and connects the dots on an orchestrated campaign that makes Goebbels look like an amateur. T

Here are a few others, just so you get an idea of the scope of the negligence of our once mighty press, now co-opted and co-conspirators:

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/316086/clinton_obama_finally_slam_pentagon_propaganda_mccain_silent
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/washington/26analyst.html?ex=1366948800&en=6a36ee3881246be7&ei=5124&partner=digg&exprod=digg
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/20/AR2008042002131.html
http://archive.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/22/analysts/index.html

Update: great read here on what this means to the Republic.