"Citizen of the world" Barack Obama is leading the press corps through a tour of Europe and the Middle East right about now. It's not about him wanting to present himself as the de facto future U.S. president, of course, but just his chance to hang out with 200,000 of his closest German friends. And he would have loved to have been able to keep his scheduled dates with American troops in Landstuhl and Ramstein, except he had to cancel. How come? Because, according to the campaign, it wouldn't be right to visit the military facilities on a campaign-funded portion of his trip.
Or maybe it's because the media's camera crews wouldn't be allowed. And Obama is tired of getting ripped on for making stops that the press isn't allowed to take part in. Yes, blame Andrea Mitchell. CONTINUED »
Academia lost an important figure this weekend. While many mourn 74-year old Dr. Charles Moskos’ death, others may take perverse pleasure in hearing the news. Why such a mixed reaction? Because the Chicago-native, who served in the American military and went on to teach Sociology at Northwestern, helped concoct Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
A White House statement about the New York Times' editorial slamming President Bush for not supporting the G.I. Bill: "Once again, the New York Times Editorial Board doesn't let the facts get in the way of expressing its vitriolic opinions - no matter how misleading they may be."
Responds editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal: "We said Bush opposes the Webb bill. He opposes the Webb bill. I don't understand what's misleading about it."
The CBS Evening News screw up last night isn't the size of, say, the plagiarized Katie Couric's Notebook incident, but for knowledgeable military types, it was perhaps inexcusable.
The over-the-shoulder graphic when Couric was reporting a story on an Army specialist who received the Distinguished Service Cross, an honor second only to the Distinguished Service Cross, from President Bush actually displayed the Distinguished Service Medal. [Qando]
Honest mistake? Likely. But the medals are given for different reasons. The Cross is awarded for valor; the Medal is awarded for meritorious service. And by saying Spc. Christopher Corriveau received the latter, lesser honor, is, to many, quite insulting.
4,500 That's the number of times the military analysts connected to the Dept. of Defense, who were exposed by the New York Times, have appeared across various media, including ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR. [MM]
Heavens to Betsy, the military is about to lose their porn! If Georgia's republican congressman Paul Broun has his way, the House will pass his legislation to ban Playboy, Hustler, and Penthouse from being delivered to U.S. bases. In fact, he says, the Military Honor and Decency Act already bans it, but last year a loophole was formed when a Department of Defense committee ruled those magazines aren't pornographic. [Military.com, via Savage] Please just don't ban legitimate magazines, which have a much more appropriate place with our men in uniform, like Out, The Advocate, and Inches.
The mainstream media may have gone out of their way to ignore the New York Times' blockbuster article exposing biased military analysts being used by cable news and newspaper op-ed pages, but at least two House reps wants answers. From the FCC. CONTINUED »
The New York Times enterprise story on how media networks have been exploited by military analysts currying favor with the government received, um, no attention from the media.
Well, okay, a analysis of media coverage found two mentions of the story, and both were during the April 24 edition of PBS' NewsHour.
So how come nobody has picked up what was arguably one of the biggest exposes of White House blunders? CONTINUED »
Based on the New York Times revelations that many military experts, stumping as television talking heads and newspaper guest op-ed columnists, are paid (with cash, trips, or access) agents of the Bush administration, producers and editors might begin taking a more cynical eye to booking these men in uniform. Because they were so apt to be neutral pundits in the first place. [E&P]
David Barstow’s penned a mammoth article this weekend on how White House and Pentagon officials deployed new networks’ “military analysts” to spread state-sponsored propaganda. And it’s pretty startling…
The report comes after the NY Times sued the Pentagon for access to over 8,000 pages of evidence proving a dangerous, frightening link between our government and media “surrogates. More than that, many of the analysts had direct business relations with military contractors and other corporations profiting from the war.
Again, the entire piece is ridiculously lengthy, but here are two telling snippets:
When John Edwards announced his commitment to helping the impoverished, including homeless veterans, it gave Bill O'Reilly an opportunity to offend America's patriots.
On The O'Reilly Factor this week, the Fox News anchor insisted there weren't any homeless vets living under bridges, or scraping money together just to feed themselves. Well, okay, there are a few, O'Reilly admitted, but they're "addicted or mentally ill, it has nothing to do with the economy. [...] The only thing sleeping under bridges is [Edwards'] brain … We're still looking for all the vets under the bridges, so if you find one, let me know."
Funny logic, there. And also, a challenge.
So documentarian Robert Greenwald summoned a half dozen homeless vets and brought them to Fox News' studios to show O'Reilly that there are, in fact, people just like them who aren't on smack, or lunatics. Greenwald also packed a petition, with 17,000 signatures, asking O'Reilly to apologize.
You know where this is going. Rather than admit his folly, O'Reilly refused to make good on his bet, and instead producer Jesse Waters downstairs to meet with the group rather than appearing himself. Naturally, cameras were rolling the whole time. CONTINUED »
On the 14th anniversary of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," we've decided to pay tribute to the "soft" ban on gays in the military by quoting noted comedian/social anthropologist, Chris Rock:
Gays in the military. Everybody's all homophobic – "Ooh, don't let him in.." Hey! If they want to fight, let 'em fight. 'Cause I ain't fighting! I wouldn't care if I saw a Russian tank on Flatbush Avenue. I'm not fighting nobody.
So even for those of you who don't contest the act because, on principle, legislating someone's version of morality is tantamount to perpetuating discrimination? Contest the act out of pure, unadulterated selfishness.
GLEE.com, a social networking site for “gays, lesbians and everyone else” is a great place to advertise jobs. But recruiting for the military? Not so much.
Despite the lack of “qualified” candidates who use GLEE.com, the Army had been advertising on the site as part of its $6.5 million Internet campaign this year. When USA Today asked the army about ads, Maj. Michael Baptista, advertising branch chief for the Army National Guard, said, “This is the first I've heard about it.”
Just a heads up to Baptista: by “everyone else,” GLEE.com is probably not referring to ex-high school football stars with nothing going on since graduating five years ago.
[Queerty]
Last month, the Army announced new rules regarding soldiers use of the web. No longer would they be free to blog or send personal emails home without the explicit consent of their supervising officers. Then the military arm backtracked, saying those might be the rules, but they wouldn't be enforced.
And now? Just two weeks in to the new regulations, it seems like some of the new rulebook's pages are sticking. Soldiers have just been banned from accessing MySpace, YouTube, and a hoard of other hip Web 2.0 social networking sites — or at least using the Army's computers to do so. The decorated higher-ups are claiming security concerns; they don't want troops revealing too much about their operations on something so public as the Internet.
So goodbye, BlackPlanet. Sayonara, Metacafe. It's been nice knowing you, iFilm. Peace out, Photobucket. Would hate to see you posting photos and videos of you and your comrades actually smiling, relaxing, or enjoying yourselves in any manner.
Despite the fact that they took the effort to adopt new rules governing soldiers' email and blog usage (read: they must get permission to click "Send" or "Save" on virtually anything), the U.S. Army insists it won't crack down on troops' personal communications, nor will it punish them for not following the rules. According to an Army fact sheet released yesterday, "In no way will every blog post/update a Soldier makes on his or her blog need to be monitored or first approved by an immediate supervisor."
Funny, 'cause that's not what their new rulebook says.
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Editorial Director
