Will the defense contractors and right wingers find some way to keep those clowns on their payroll? Probably.

but no one's cleared the news networks.

And the news networks chose not to cooperate with the IG. More importantly, what the IG concluded was merely that they could not prove money was used illegally by the Pentagon. How does one prove that money was used for "self aggrandizement". As long as the Pentagon had a nominally legitimate reason for holding these briefings, who's to say the money was misused? I don't think the report vindicated anyone.

*No one* holds the media accountable, except for this and other blogs.

The revolving doors will keep on turning, moving the goods to the top until it all comes crashing down. Civilizations based on the servicing of the elites have proved to be highly unstable and unsustainable. Give us some more evidence of why we should withdraw our support of this house of cards.

This is, of course, what we call fascism. It's no different from Hitler using Bertelsmann to distribute anti-semitic propaganda.

*No one* holds the media accountable - Chris S.

I'm guessing you, like I, gagged when you saw "Howard Kurtz" and "to his credit" in the same sentence.

Really hate to agree with Bushies on anything, but the Pentagon IG got this one right. The networks hired these bozos because of their connections with and access to the Pentagon, it was up to the networks to explain that these guys were getting information spoon fed to them based on those connections and access.

The NYT article states:

Some network officials, meanwhile, acknowledged only a limited understanding of their analysts’ interactions with the administration. They said that while they were sensitive to potential conflicts of interest, they did not hold their analysts to the same ethical standards as their news employees regarding outside financial interests. The onus is on their analysts to disclose conflicts, they said. And whatever the contributions of military analysts, they also noted the many network journalists who have covered the war for years in all its complexity.

Five years into the Iraq war, most details of the architecture and execution of the Pentagon’s campaign have never been disclosed. But The Times successfully sued the Defense Department to gain access to 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.

The network news guys fell down on the job, mostly because everyone, incorrectly, confused paid subject matter experts with journalists. The network should take as a given that if these guys are getting special access they are paying a price for it. The Pentagon guys greet their former colleagues with their dress uniforms on, they are not obligated to then drop trou and show them the pimples on their asses. If the military analysts had been journalists they would have been obligated to look for those pimples, but as analysts they had no such obligation. And as analysts/subject matter experts, I'm not sure what ethics they were bound by, other than personal ethics about taking money under false pretenses.

This is not a new story in Washington: an investigation into one narrow aspect of a major scandal that finds its subject innocent of having violated a specific law or regulation while not touching on the reasons the scandal erupted in the first place. The subjects of the investigation then claim complete vindication.

In this case, mainstream and especially broadcast media will amplify and repeat the claim, since the misconduct in this scandal was largely by major electronic outlets like CNN, Fox, CBS, and NBC. I suspect Howard Kurtz will continue to be allowed to make occasional statements pushing in the other direction because CNN knows his show is buried on Sunday morning and little watched.

The Pentagon IG is not the only one with the authority to investigate DOD. The GAO (Government Accountability Office - an arm of Congress)can do that as well, sounds like it's time.

The 'Done nothing wrong' self-absolution is no different from USAF exonerating themselves of the Azizabad massacre in Afghanistan. Nobody in officialdom or the media seems to track these massacres, but this site does on it's own:
www.afghancentral.blogspot.com

And, no one has cleared the Pentagon's inspector general.

2 words: "OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD"

The CIA has reason to brag about its operation since 1947 to now...it is a complete success.