Bush Propaganda Program: Pentagon Officials Won't Confirm Its Termination

Raw Story:

The covert Bush administration program that used retired military analysts to generate favorable wartime news coverage may not have been terminated, Raw Story has found.

In interviews, Pentagon officials in charge of the press and community relations offices -- which worked in partnership on the military analyst program -- equivocated on the subject of whether the program has ended.

Read the whole story: Raw Story

Comments

[GreatNews27]

Hell, they're probably still sending Bush the reports! You know how the Pentagon loves them some warmongers!

[northstar11]

wonder what wolf blitzer has to say about this-----"they were really propaganda agents , i thought we were getting the inside scoop"-------we made all those wall maps and floor maps and the guys with the pointers were stooges

[Rule Of Law]

'Retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner, an expert in military strategy and operations who has taught at the National War College, Air War College and Naval War College and has been critical of Bush administration strategy, expressed disgust at the Bush holdovers who took part in propaganda against the American public.

Commenting on Whitman’s presence in the Obama administration, Gardiner said, “He should be so tainted with what the Bush administration did that that in itself would be enough that he should be gone, even if he’s a career appointee.”

“The list of things that Pentagon public affairs participated in during the run-up [to the Iraq war] and immediately after the invasion are horrendous,” Gardiner continued."

Are you paying attention Mr. Obama?

[BikeFreak]

F*CK THE PENTAGON!!!!

The take taxpayer money...then they are hired by taxpayers...so the Pentagon should give information up when asked by taxpayers and their representatives.

THIS IS BS!!!!!

[Paulo1]

Of course they won't say it ended.

Mr. Obama has been very very good at keeping all of the executive power that Bush left him. Why should the program end just because there is a new guy in charge?

Payback may not look very good to the guys who let Bush grab all these little gems of power though.

[underthegun1]

You said it.

[Acleacius]

RawStory kfa :)

[ThermoChemist]

I thought they were referring to THIS Bush Propaganda Program:

"Under Bush administration directives, at least 20 federal agencies have PRODUCED and DISTRIBUTED scores of "video news releases" out of a $254 million slush fund set up to manufacture taxpayer-funded propaganda. These BOGUS and DECEPTIVE STORIES have been broadcast on TV stations nationwide without any acknowledgment that they were prepared by the government rather than local journalists.

The segments — which trumpeted administration “successes,” promoted its controversial line on issues like overhauling Medicare, and featured Americans "thanking" Bush — have been repeatedly labeled "covert propaganda" by investigators at the GAO.

The White House has paid people to POSE AS as television REPORTERS ...

Faux-journalist Karen Ryan [http://www.alternet.org/media/20865]
became INFAMOUS in media circles for fronting this series of Bush-friendly “video news releases” that DUPED local television newscasters broadcast across the country as real news... She also “reported” for Bush policy in a 2003 video news release that sang the praises of the NCLB Act. On a similar front the WH Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has produced eight Video News Releases that the GAO found VIOLATED LAWS against undisclosed publicity and propaganda."

http://www.yuricareport.com/Media/BattleForControlOfThePress.html

+++++

"See in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
-- Dubya

[Rule Of Law]

"Veteran foreign correspondent Reese Erlich, who is currently independently covering the Afghanistan war, believes that “to some extent, the Obama administration is just simply replicating all the same mistakes of the Bush administration – particularly the war in Afghanistan.”

“And if you’re going to do that,” he explained in an interview with Raw Story, “then you need propagandists who can make stuff up to make the war seem more popular in the short run.”

[edwcorey]

Absolutely. The U.S. is trying to do in Asia what it attempted in South America: instead of "commies," we're now hunting "terrorists." Funny, isn't it, that the "terrorists" were smarter than the CIA (who trained them, much as they trained the murdering right-wingers in South America). The "terrorists" took what they learned and turned it on us. They knew who the real America was: a murdering thief of oligarchs who propagandize to the nation that the U.S. is the good guy. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/25/080225fa_fact_kramer

[marmalade]

Republicans aren't even weak on defense. They have no defense strategy. They cave to the enemies because they are theocratically similar to the enemy and have more in common with the enemies of America than the Democrats.

They are foreign policy p....ies. Ideologically, they live in a dystopia of conservative revenge and military bombing of any who disagree with them. This is not only weakness, knee jerk weakness, it is giving no foreign policy at all.

Elect Republicans for no defense of country. Foxification of America -- enemies and no defense for the country.

[offred]

We all know that there are still Bush/Cheney moles at all levels of government, working toward a neocon/Rep­ublican/pl­utocratic agenda, rather than toward the well being of all Americans.

[sense oar sheep]

The covert _____ program that uses _____ analysts to generate favorable ___ coverage continues unabatted, Raw Story never found.

fill in the first blank with your favorite political candidate, MSM, special interest group, political party, corporation, lobbyist, etc

who doesn't lie to the public?

[Okieborn]

George W, Bush, Cheney and the rest of the Bush gang will never ever be prosecuted, Bush handed President Obama the book of free passes and he is using them for all of the Rethugs.

[Moshe]

The Bush/Cheney years were a cornucopia of bad policy decisions, from the ridiculous to the unlawful, from partisan insanity to war crimes.

But if President Obama continues these bad policies, they become his, and in doing so, he will alienate his own political base, and there is nothing he can ever do to win support from the right.

If President Obama does not push through real change where needed (and promised), the disastrous Bush/Cheny policies become his, and it will be a long, lonely 4 years . . .

He should keep his campaign promises and bring he promised.

The far right will scream, rant, and wet themselves, but they will do that no matter what he does.

[ranchero42]

Is Dick Cheney still in charge of the "shadow government"?

Duh. He still thinks he is.

[Moshe]

All kidding aside, he does act as if he were the de facto leader of the shadow government in exile.

There is a long standing tradition of the former administration literally leaving town. Cheney is still there

There is a long standing traditon of some reasonable deference to the next administration. Cheney won't shut up, and he actively feeds venomous contempt for the current President.

No suprises here though. He was a lawless, contemptious, under handed vice president, and now he is a lawless, contemptious, under handed ex-vice president.

[TheBaffler]

He may as well be, given the unabated continuation of his policies.

[BaseballMicky]

Why is this man not in prison?

[Moshe]

Because he was largely successful in dismantling the Rule of Law in the U.S. while he was the de facto president.

What Nixon did now seems almost quaint by comparison to open contempt of the Constitution, the Rule of Law, and Cheney's continued advocacy and defense of torture and other war crimes.

[1differentdrummer]

End it, shut it down, prosecute those responsible.