As the chorus for the Weezer song of the same name coursed through my brain, I sat there reading the massive, 7,200+ word lead piece for the New York Times Sunday edition that exposes a calculated, covert PR-blitz by the Pentagon using retired military talking heads to advance their agenda on various cable news networks.

Flip on the tele’
Wrestle with Jimmy
Something is bubbling
Behind my back
The bottle is ready to blow

And blow it did. Wide open. Just about when the Times won a lawsuit that required the Pentagon to pony up “8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantánamo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation.

“These records reveal a symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines between government and journalism have been obliterated.”

At this stage of the game, it’s a bit like someone subpoenaing the key to OJ’s safe-deposit box and finding a signed confession along with a videotape of the man himself committing the murders. Would anyone really be shocked?

David Barlow, who has the byline on the piece, manages to sustain an air of incredulity throughout, much to his credit. One can only assume how long a story like this has been brewing at the Times, with their editors salivating at the prospect of hard evidence to corroborate what they have believed all along.

Although the Bush Administration has succeeded in creating a pervasive distrust among the public with its abuse of “executive privilege” and an informational firewall requiring a court order to verify W’s shoe size, I would wager that the military “experts” still held a fairly high degree of credibility. They’re retired, afterall…what possible hold could the government have over them?

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

This, of course, is just the tip of the 12-page iceberg. Kudos to the Times for being one of the only remaining broadsheet stalwarts with the savvy and funding to succeed at such a massive undertaking. The watchdog is feeling a bit rickety, but still alive and kicking in at least one city in the U.S.

Tags: duh, investigative journalism, new york times, pentagon