"You are the leader."

The deafening silence from the corporate-owned media on their employment of official propaganda sources inside their news broadcasts is typical, but at least one leak has sprung. The Pentagon released all of their documents that the New York Times obtained in FOIA requests to fill in their reporting. And there are more hidden gems inside that set of documents.

But most immediately intriguing is audio of some of the briefings at the Pentagon, including two featuring Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The audio we've excerpted here comes from a meeting on April 18, 2006. It was an emergency meeting called because earlier in the month, several retired generals had hit the airwaves demanding that Rumsfeld resign. 17 analysts attended the briefing, which featured Rumsfeld and then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Peter Pace. It was a remarkable display of servility, with one analyst at one point proclaiming that Rumsfeld need to get out there on the "offense," because "we'd love to be following our leader, as indeed you are. You are the leader. You are our guy."

The audio is worse than the summary makes it out to be:



This all worked out, by the way. The analysts who were in the room all trudged right out to their news stations and repeated Rumsfeld's talking points, basically mainlining the view from inside the Pentagon right through to everyone's TV set. The charitable word for this is propaganda. It is indeed illegal. And the fact that the news outlets won't utter a peep about it means they know they have to keep their head down in the face of this.

On Tuesday, Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and John Dingell (D-Mich.) sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin “urging an investigation of the Pentagon’s propaganda program” to determine if the networks or analysts violated federal law.

FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps, a Democrat, applauded their efforts. “President Eisenhower warned against the excesses of a military-industrial complex,” Copps said in a statement. “I’d like to think that hasn’t morphed into a military-industrial-media complex, but reports of spinning the news through a program of favored insiders don’t inspire a lot of confidence.”

DeLauro said by phone that the Pentagon’s program was “created in order to give military analysts access in exchange for positive coverage of the Iraq war.”

The reckoning of this Administration, and its servile media, is coming too late for my money.

The Pentagon: More Responsive Than The US Media

Apparently the Defense Department felt the pressure - I have no idea from whom - sufficient to stop feeding information to retired generals who play pundits on TV.

(Robert Hastings, principal deputy assistant secretary of Defense for public affairs) said he is concerned about allegations that the Defense Department's relationship with the retired military analysts was improper.

"Following the allegations, the story that is printed in the New York Times, I directed my staff to halt, to suspend the activities that may be ongoing with retired military analysts to give me time to review the situation," Hastings said in an interview with Stripes on Friday.

Hastings said he did not discuss the matter with Defense Secretary Robert Gates prior to making his decision. He could not say Friday how long this review might take.

"We'll take the time to do it right," he said.

Funny, because there has not been one stitch of coverage of this important issue in virtually any broadcast news outlet, while the retired generals remain on their payrolls. You'd think that for the Pentagon to shut down a program that gave them obvious benefits, they would have to feel some public outcry, which would arise from, you know, wide reporting on the matter. True, Democrats are finally coming around to speaking out about this issue, including Rep. Ike Skelton (chair of the House Armed Services Committee), Rep. Rosa DeLauro and even the Presidential candidates. Certainly, Skelton could haul Pentagon brass into hearings and make things very uncomfortable, and their suspension of the program could be a pre-emptive strike. But the fact that DeLauro sent letters to the heads of the television networks asking for details about the Pentagon pundits, and while the Defense Department shut down the program, the broadcast media did ZIPPO, shows you how deeply corrupt and desirous of avoiding responsibility they are.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that the Pentagon, George Bush's Pentagon, is showing themselves to be MORE accountable to the public than the traditional broadcast media. That's a pretty low bar, and the media couldn't get over it. On the other hand, they must be really proud of the Miley Cyrus topless story.

Glenn Greenwald has more.