folo

Thanks to TPM for this YouTube of unnamed “military analysts,” AKA ho’s, fawning over Don Rumsfeld, “We’d love to be following our leader, as indeed you are. You are the leader. You are our guy,” etc., etc.

Since the New York Times‘ David Barstow broke this story on April 20, according to Politico, as bloggers have kept after it and members of both houses of Congress have asked the Federal Communication Commission to investigate, the analysts’ pimps, the networks, have maintained a silence Politico calls “deafening.”

FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps notes that "President Eisenhower warned against the excesses of a military-industrial complex. 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. "

The Politico post (worth a read in full) concludes:

Unlike many newspapers, the networks do not have ombudsmen or public editors, leaving little room for transparency if they refuse to comment or commit to a follow-up story.

CBS’s "Public Eye " blog, created in the wake of the Dan Rather "Memogate " debacle, was the sole medium for responding to viewer concerns with original reporting and analysis. But it was shuttered in December, following cutbacks.

"This controversy about military analysts would have been right in our ballpark, " said Dick Meyer, former editorial director of CBS News who spearheaded the "Public Eye " project in September 2005.

Meyer, who became NPR’s editorial director of digital media last month, said, "It’s irresponsible for a modern news organization to not have some kind of readers’ advocate, some kind of public editor function. "

Ah yes, but in an era when irresponsibility seems an MSM job-qualification, I don’t suppose either Meyer or I will get very far with our clucking. However . . .