Ahhh, the seamless global web of mumbojumbo.
As we know now from the LATimes and the NYTimes, the Pentagon is paying an outfit called the Lincoln Group to plant phony stories in the Iraqi press about just how well things are going in Iraq.
Actually, maybe that’s a sign of progress since that’s how we seem to be running this place too.
In any case, one graf from today’s NYT piece is too choice not to reprint …
Even as the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development pay contractors millions of dollars to help train journalists and promote a professional and independent Iraqi media, the Pentagon is paying millions more to the Lincoln Group for work that appears to violate fundamental principles of Western journalism.
I guess if I had a goatee and a black turtle neck I’d call this the internal contradictions of Bush bamboozlement. And perhaps I should.
But while the DOD is hiring the Lincoln Group, the Lincoln is subcontracting the work to BKSH, the PR firm run by Republican uber-operative and spinmeister Charlie Black.
Actually, if you’re looking for phony stories about how well things are going in Iraq, I guess a Republican talking head like Charlie Black might be a pretty good bet. So this might be an example of shrewd government contracting.
And if you wonder what Charlie Black knows about bamboozling Iraqis, don’t worry because he must have picked something up when he was working for Ahmed Chalabi before the war.
(ed.note: thanks to TPM Reader LR.)
