Via Jay Ackroyd, writing at Eschaton, We see that TIME Magazine’s Joe Klein is claiming that his Pentagon sources aren’t tainted by the propaganda scandal unearthed by the New York Times a few weeks back.
First of all, the vast majority of my military and intelligence sources have never been on television. Most are active duty military. Several of them took real career risks, especially during the Rumsfeld era, to get out the truth about a war they saw going terribly wrong.
Of course, the Times only focused on the best-known TV generals for their piece. Just because Klein’s sources didn’t show up on that list doesn’t clear them. That’s the whole insidious threat of programs like the Sock Generals.
I also liked this bit of Klein’s self-defense:
In recent months, I’ve emphasized my fear–and that of some of my sources, but not others–that the U.S. is trying to establish long-term bases in Iraq.
Wow. “Recent months“? It hardly seems that sources were necessary to have come to that conclusion years ago.