IP: second NYT -- Coyote Rummy

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/24/opinion/24DOWD.html

Coyote Rummy

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON ? The secretary of defense fires off lots of memos, known as 
"snowflakes" or "Rummygrams."
I want Rummy to send a Rummygram telling the Pentagon to kick its addiction 
to fiction.
A day after we learned that the military's Office of Strategic Influence 
wanted to plant fake stories in the overseas press, we read in Variety that 
the Pentagon is teaming with Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of "Top Gun," 
"Black Hawk Down," "Pearl Harbor" and "Coyote Ugly," and Bertram van 
Munster, of "Cops," to make a TV docudrama about the war on terrorism.

The 13-episode "reality" series on ABC will profile our troops abroad.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the Pentagon would also cooperate with 
a VH1 show called the "Military Diaries Project," which will turn 60 
soldiers into Josh Hartnetts as they star in their own war movies, training 
digital cameras on themselves.
"I'm outraged about the Hollywoodization of the military," Dan Rather told 
me. "Somebody's got to question whether it's a good idea to limit 
independent reporting on the battlefield and access of journalists to U.S. 
military personnel and then conspire with Hollywood."

<snip>

They would rather make troops available as props in gung-ho videos than 
available to explain how the commanders let Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda 
leaders escape or targeted the wrong villages.
 <snip>

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