Should the American press become propaganda outlets?

Should the American press become propaganda outlets? I guess this is what would happen if we grant Donald Rumsfield his wishes. As reported in the Washington Times (see here) "Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld urged the American press yesterday to reassess what he called repeated negative coverage of Iraq as his commanders in Iraq push an extensive information war to counter terrorists' propaganda."

Perhaps what the American press needs to do is submit all articles dealing with "the war on terrorism" to some office under the Secretary of Defense prior to publication? We could call this office the "Ministry of Propaganda" or something. Perhaps Donald can come up with a more creative title such as "Undersecretary for Dissemination of Our Version of the Truth". (With a little work, I bet we could even come up with an acronym that spells out "DOVE". Let's see, "Defense Office of Verifiable..." someone break out the Thesaurus and come up with an E word. I'd do it but we have to expect Donald can do some of the work!)

Perhaps the press could even assist Donald in his desires by allowing DOD reporters do the writing of the stories. Heck, this could even help the bottom line of the "free press" because they would not even have to keep reporters of their own on the payroll any longer to do the reporting. DOD will gladly do all the work for them. From what I have heard a good editor might coax a little "positive cash flow" out the DOD for cooperating as has happened in Iraq.

We can even try the ole carrot and stick approach. If some holdout newspapers dare to publish what is coming across one of the "disinformation" wire services, such as Reuters, we can bomb the wire service as a warning that the gloves are off.

We can guard against our citizens finding out what the rest of the world is reporting as going on by having Customs agents search the baggage of citizens who are returning from traveling abroad for dissenting opinions which could be contained in them damn foreign newspapers. We can jam TV and radio signals coming across our borders from Canada, because, well, you know how them Canadians are. We could just start filtering the internet.

You see, the problem here is not too much freedom of speech, the problem is too much information. Americans should be allowed freedom of speech; but what they don't know won't hurt them. If they don't know about it they won't talk about it so we do not have to worry about restriction of freedom of speech issues.

Yup. That Donald Rumsfield sure seems to be a genius. I wonder if he figured out this plan of action on his own or if some underling of his advised him? Either way Donald gets the credit. He's the one who put this team together.

I'm signing on with Donald Rumsfield. Unless Donald says it is so, it just ain't so. With wise men like him in charge of our troops, victory is assured.

(Please note the above is dripping with sarcasm. I hate to have to point that out, but when I have tried to be sarcastic in the past people have later quoted what I said back at me.)