Apparently John Podhoretz and I weren’t the only ones underwhelmed by David Barstow’s 7,600-word magnum opus in Sunday’s New York Times. (The piece detailed how the Pentagon tries to woo retired military officers to get out its side of the story in the Iraq War.) According to this Los Angeles Times online article, the article “made minimal ripples”:

The Sunday-morning talk shows ignored the piece. . . . the Pentagon caper likewise seemed a nonstarter in the blogosphere. . . . NBC’s Brian Williams, who’s been known to take a rooting interest in media-industry shopkeeping, didn’t even mention it on his “Daily Nightly” blog.

The LA Times blogger explains this lack of interest by claiming that Americans are used to having their government manipulate the media: “You don’t have to tell John Q. Public that the fix is in; he takes it for granted.” That may be true. But I think it’s also true that most Americans are aware that the MSM have their own spin on the news, and they don’t think it’s wrong for those with a different viewpoint–even if they work at the Department of Defense–to try to get out another side of the story.

For all the angst over “media manipulation,” the reality is that the public isn’t so easily manipulated. Public opinion of the war effort eroded when we were losing the war on the ground. Now that we’re making progress, public support has rebounded. There’s nothing wrong with the Pentagon trying to highlight what it sees as positive news–just as there is nothing wrong with the MSM reporting largely negative news. The body politic will gradually sort it all out.