The Early Bird Meets the Mandate

Paul Begala, co-host of CNN’s Crossfire, back in February 2004:

Well, Howie Kurtz is the man, of course, who keeps a[n] eye on the media for CNN’s “RELIABLE SOURCES” and “The Washington Post.” He reports that the Bush administration is engaged in a rather novel new form of censorship. Articles that are critical of the military or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are simply excluded from the all-important Early Bird clipping service.

Now, you may not have heard of the Early Bird, but it is a must-read for everyone in the national security field, especially in the Pentagon. So, by censoring unflattering articles, the Bush administration is ensuring that our senior defense officials are fundamentally misinformed about how their work is being covered in the press. Of course, President Bush censors himself by refusing to read anything in the papers. He even brags about it.

So I guess, you know, if ignorance is bliss, George W. Bush is the happiest man in America.

Dubya and Rummy just got happier.

Until last week, the folks who put out the Armed Forces Information Service’s Early Bird (you may not be able to follow the Early Bird link unless you’re accessing it from a .gov or .mil address) countered censorship attempts by offering a supplementary collection of press clippings called the “Current News Supplement.” The clippings contained in the Early Bird’s main section, the “Current News Early Bird,” were palatable to senior leadership. Clippings contained in the supplement offered a fuller picture, covering sensitive and controversial defense-related subjects, sometimes in ways that reflected poorly on decisions made by senior policymakers.

Last week the supplement rang down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. AFIS left this note where it used to be: “The Department of Defense has discontinued the Current News Supplement. Resources have been reallocated in order to issue the Current News Early Bird seven days a week.”

Uh, sure, guys. Riiight.