[Miss Marple]

I believe you are on to something, regarding the strategy to make the press look bad. I note that the Centcom briefings were moved to 7AM Eastern...so that this ends up being on during the Today Show, etc.

[Timeout]

Frankly, I was hoping the CENTOM briefing would start and there would be no reporters there....all bored to death overnight! Would've been more informative.

I'm going to re-post this from one I put up earlier this morning. It explains a lot about these briefings.

I just remembered something which may explain the sulking among reporters at CENTCOM.

There was a report in the WashPost last week about "Operation Messenger"...the administration's media rapid response team. The article went into much detail about how they would quickly shoot down erroneous stories, as well as getting out clarifying info in real time. There are hundreds of people at "Messenger" monitoring media reports throughout the world, correcting mistakes and adding to incomplete reports. Remember within minutes we were told "This is Shock & Awe"? It came from the Pentagon.

Occurs to me that is why we're getting so much more good info out of Pentagon reporters as opposed to those in Qatar. It's a hoot! Those sissies in CENTCOM didn't realize the admin is letting CENTCOM fight a war with the Iraqis while Washington takes care of the war with the media! CENTCOM reporters got snookered when they "drew this prized assignment".

Timeout