Here are three more ridiculous things that happened these past two weeks:

∫ Feith still beating his invisible drum —Douglas Feith, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (2001-2005), said of the American people, “I think they misremember a lot,” about what the government’s argument was to go to war with Iraq. Recently on “The Daily Show” plugging his new book, “War and Decisions,” Feith went on to say ridiculous things like “When people read this book, I think people will be surprised to be reminded of what was what actually said. I think a lot of people’s perceptions of what was said are filtered through the recent history.” Yikes, I think THIS guy’s been filtered through recent history. I mean, who is he kidding? According to two studies done by non-profit journalism groups released in January of this year, Bush aides made 935 false statements in only two years following Sept. 11, 2001. These statements all come from primary sources from a searchable database with government transcripts and speeches made. Bush himself made 232 false statements about Iraq and Saddam Hussein possessing WMDs and 28 separate false accusations of Iraq’s links to al Qaeda. What bothers me most about neocons like Feith is their continuous denial of getting their facts wrong. Everyone has read the commission report by now and has heard the facts, but yet they still hold onto this absolute deniability. Speaking of deniaBILLitiy…

∫ A Bill blast from the past — He’s almost comical these days isn’t he, Bill O’Reilly? We see him on video clips ranting and raving about the “liberal” media, Democrats, or whatever version of McCarthyism is his vice this week. But recently, a video popped up online from his past days on “Inside Edition” depicting what “BillO” is like behind the scenes. The clip follows O’Reilly in an attempt to close out the show with teleprompter problems. Well well well, that was apparrently it for Bill as he unreleased an obscenity-laden onslaught of yelling and ranting, ripped off his jacket, and stormed off stage after his segment was finished. Google it. It’ll come up.

∫ Pentagon officials — In a report that just will not stay buried under the rug of cable news, The New York Times published an article by David Barstow stating that the “media analysts” quoted in the media and appearing on television shows came from the Pentagon and defense ministries. In the report, Barstow said “the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform” these very military analysts “into a kind of media Trojan horse —an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.” And even more disturbing has been recently the center of further speculation into this NYT piece; Media Matters is reporting that their review yielded results that since the very beginning of 2002, these “military analysts” have been quoted as experts a whopping 4,500 times on “ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC and NPR.”

That means that 4,500 times the statements from these military experts have come from inside the very establishment which they were being requested to assist objectively. Harmful to the viewers as well as their personal creditability, this report and finding can and should be damaging to the administration’s shadow government persona. The report goes on to say that most of the analysts in question have close ties to the military contractors that were they were being asked to comment on air. “Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants.”

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Contact Ben at bspanner@graffitiwv.com