Bushco Trying To Infiltrate MSM

Not content to just bully the MSM and threaten to bring reporters up on criminal charges if they write things Jorgie doesn't like. Now they're trying to actually plant their people in MSM newspapers. I'm sorry, but there is no way on earth to avoid thinking of Stalinist Russia or Hitler's Germany. Or Animal Farm for that matter.

A former spokesman for President Bush recently offered to several newspapers supposedly objective freelance stories from Iraq by two combat veterans who lead a pro-war group with deep Republican ties.

Several months after revelations that a Pentagon contractor was paying Iraqi news outlets for favorable war coverage, former White House spokesman Taylor Gross approached at least four major newspapers, including The Buffalo News, with the offer.

Gross' pitch to The News said the two highly decorated veterans could serve as embedded correspondents and "offer balanced and credible viewpoints gained directly from those closest to and most affected by the Iraq War." One of the reporters, former Marine Lt. Wade Zirkle, helped run Republican Jerry Kilgore's 2005 campaign for governor of Virginia.

Zirkle and the other reporter, David Bellavia of Batavia, are top leaders of Vets for Freedom, a new group with a highly polished Web site hosted by a firm that previously worked for the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee.

Fortunately, the papers aren't taking the bait. But it might be good to watch out for bylines by these two "objective" reporters.

No mainstream paper accepted Gross' offer. Several major papers did, however, publish opinion pieces by Vets for Freedom leaders this spring. And last week, Bellavia and Zirkle returned to Iraq and embedded with military units. Their blog, at www.vetsforfreedom.org, paints a largely positive picture of the war effort.

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