Guest blogged by Winter Patriot
Early this afternoon, the lead story on CNN's main page was headlined "Critics question Pentagon news sites".
It began:
That story is now gone, and not a trace of it can be found. The CNN search engine can't find it. Google knows nothing. Interesting, no?
Why do you suppose CNN pulled it? You don't suppose they got any heat for it, do you?
And what do you make of the shift-of-tense? The first sentence says "[DoD] plans to add more sites", but the second sentence says "the sites are run". Is this story about sites that are already up and running? Or about sites that don't yet exist? Or both? I can't tell. Can you? We may as well assume the worst.
Further, what do you suppose it means by "journalists"? What do you suppose that word means in the context of the phrase "President Bush's pledge not to pay journalists to promote his policies"? How about "partisan hacks pretending to be journalists"? Do you think his pledge extends that far? Do you suppose Jeff Gannon qualifies as a "journalist"?
I still say we may as well assume the worst. We may as well expect more "information warfare". We may as well expect more "battlefield deception". We should never forget that "the home front" is considered "a battlefield", where those who can see through the propaganda, and who dare call it by its proper name, are considered "the enemy".
I wish I had saved more of that story. I wish I had read more of it.
Oh well. We'll find out soon enough. But not from CNN.