Planted Propaganda

[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Editorial Staff]
[Commentary] The Bush Administration's history of news manipulation makes it less surprising, but no less loathsome and damaging to find that the Administration has treated the Iraqi press, the Iraqi people and the very idea of Iraqi democracy with even greater contempt. The problem with this propaganda, as senior military officials who blew the whistle on it understood, is that it undermines the very effort it is trying to promote. An essential element of a democracy is a free press, not one controlled or covertly manipulated by government. As a senior Pentagon official told the Times, "Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we're breaking all the first principles of democracy when we're doing it." That shouldn't have been so hard to figure out.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/01/AR200512...
(requires registration)