"Yeah, We Did It, So?"

I don't know if this escaped everyone or not, but Dana Perino yesterday admitted White House involvement in the Pentagon pundit scandal.

But I would say that one of the things that we try to do in the administration is get information out to a variety of people so that everybody else can call them and ask their opinion about something. And I don’t think that that should be against the law. And I think that it’s absolutely appropriate to provide information to people who are seeking it and are going to be providing their opinions on it.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that all of those military analysts ever agreed with the administration. I think you can go back and look and think that a lot of their analysis was pretty tough on the administration. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t talk to people.

Not said here is the multiple conflicts of interest, particularly on a financial level, between these puppets and the military industrial complex. Not said is that access would be granted in exchange for favorable coverage, and military analysts like Wes Clark frozen out if they used independent judgment.

Sens. Levin and Kerry are calling for investigations. Which is fine. But I think Perino gave us most of the information that we need. And the next group that needs to fess up are the heads of the top broadcast and cable news outlets.

UPDATE: Sen. Feingold has asked the GAO if the Pentagon pundit program is legal. I'm happy that Democrats are talking about this, though I'm not sure they're going after the right source - it's the media who has the responsibility here.