THE TRUTH COMES OUT – AT 10:35 A.M. ET:  We tend to forget the viciousness of the campaign against the Bush administration and its appointees.  "Bush lied, thousands died" was only the start of it.  And remember that the Justice Department is still considering prosecutions of CIA officers for the crime of doing their jobs.  Although you can be sure that an unpopular move like that won't come until after the election, if the Obamans survive.

Now comes news that a highly publicized charge, and one that won a Pulitzer Prize, has turned out to be untrue, according to a full investigation.  From the Washington Times: 

A three-year government investigation has found no wrongdoing by Bush-era Pentagon officials when they gave war briefings to retired military analysts who served as TV and radio commentators.

The probe by the Pentagon inspector general was in response to a 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning article in the New York Times that implied the former military officers, some of whom worked for or were defense contractors, received financial favors in return for their commentary and were tools in a propaganda campaign.

Sources familiar with the IG’s final report said it will say officials broke no rules or laws when they provided information briefings, some from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The IG also found no evidence that any analyst or his defense contractor employer received favorable treatment or procurement contracts because of his work as an on-air commentator, according to the sources.

“The report basically says the Pentagon activities were in compliance with [Department of Defense] directives and instructions,” a government official familiar with the findings told The Washington Times. In terms of financial favors, “they didn’t find any evidence of that,” the source said.

COMMENT:  Does The New York Times give back the Pulitzer Prize?  Don't hold your breath.  The Times does not give back Pulitzer Prizes.  (Other newspapers have.)  But vindication must be sweet for those falsely charged.  And many are falsely charged, especially if they work for conservative administrations. 

Now I want to see another outrage cleared up – the charge that George W. Bush lied about WMD to justify invading Iraq.  He did not.  He used the same information that Bill Clinton had used.  And while it is true that the weapons inspectors did not find stockpiles of WMD in Iraq, they did find the WMD programs, ready to be restarted once sanctions on Iraq were lifted.  That part gets left out of news stories.  I guess the dog ate that section of the inspectors' report.

September 26, 2011