You buy a newspaper, not vote for it, and it can't take life and death decisions that will directly affect you.

Q. The media reform group, Free Press, has put out a video on the lack of press coverage and begun a petition drive “calling on Congress to investigate the military pundits and their ties to the Bush administration, defense contractors and our national news media.” A first, most logical reporter’s inquiry could go to Congressional leaders and leaders of any number of committees that could claim jurisdiction over unethical, illegal activities: Will they investigate?

Q. What about the presidential candidates? Are they satisfied with a system that permits retired military leaders to work the Pentagon as lobbyists for corporations and serve as propagandists at the same time? Isn’t something wrong with both parts of that equation? What do McCain, Clinton and Obama have to say about it?

Q. As David Barstow pointed out in an online Q&A on April 21, “It is not legal for the U.S. government to direct psychological operations or propaganda against the American people.” What view do First Amendment and constitutional attorneys have? At some point, propaganda becomes illegal. Did this program cross that point? Was it unethical, illegal or both? Or neither?

Q. In 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld created what was called the Office of Strategic Influence, an international propaganda operation. After complaints and ridicule when news of it broke, Rumsfeld said the office had closed down. Later he said the program had continued, with only the name abolished. Does that program still exist or not?

Questions for the Times itself, perhaps for a follow-up story or stories:

Q. Why did the Times wait so long? (Two years to get FOIA responses?) Why didn’t it report the story earlier, even if only some of the facts were known? Getting big stories and holding them for very long periods of time has become a pattern at the Times and other news organizations. Their rationale, often, is that the reporting hasn’t been completed. Is reporting ever completed?

Q. The Times story states that “most of the analysts [the retired generals] have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.” Were there instances when it looks as though these retired military leaders or their business associates benefited financially from promoting the Pentagon-White House line? Anything that could be construed as a pay-off? Barstow spent a long time in his reporting and may have some answers to this question; if so, why not write them up?

Needless to say, relying on Saddam Hussein, Jacques Chirac, and Kofi Annan to be the almost exclusive face of the anti-war movement is even worse than ignoring it. As the authors say blandly, "It is well known that source credibility is central to the persuasiveness of communication, political or otherwise. And while many Americans were skeptical of the Bush administration's motivations for a confrontation with Iraq, we would surmise that even greater skepticism infused Americans' perceptions of Saddam Hussein's arguments about why war was a bad idea." Seems a safe surmise to me.

Leading up the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein's regime was defended quite thoroughly by the press, IMHO, and a great attempt to vindicate his regime has been a steady goal of the media. It is amazing how any hardship the Iraq people have endured, including during his reign, is the USA's fault, and only the USA's fault in the media.

What's funny is that an analyst that is in contact with the Pentagon and "walks their line" is somehow an abomination, but Wesley Clarke, a retired General and formal Democrat Presidential Candidate is somehow NOT partisan or unbiased when he is hired as a "military consultant" on news channels - and is rarely identified with his political biases - to speak about Iraq.

Are we now entering into metaphysics?

No, entering Metalica!