You can't buy press like this - or can you?

Speaking of bought off bloggers, the WaPo does a profile piece on the darling of the milbloggers, Bill Roggio, who "was a computer technician living in New Jersey less than two months ago when a Marine officer half a world away made him an offer he couldn't refuse." Seems the glory boys in the Pentagon don't like the mainstream coverage, weak though it is, because it's making them look bad. So they "enlisted" Bill as an embed.

His Fourth Rail fans donated $30 Gs to pay for his ticket and his equipment but still, do you think he really gave up a good job just for patriotism or maybe fame? I suppose it's possible and if so, my hat's off to him for going, but there is this little twist, mentioned almost as an afterthought by the WaPo.

After military officials in Baghdad said Roggio could not be issued media credentials unless he was affiliated with an organization, the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning research organization in Washington, offered him an affiliation, according to an entry on Roggio's blog.

It doesn't say but one might conclude a "little" honorarium of sorts may have come with that and I can think of all kinds of lobbyists who might want to underwrite a blogger who only posts "good news." And this is interesting. How do you think he's paying for this bandwidth without a job?

He and two other bloggers launched a new Web site a month ago ( http://threatswatch.com ), where he has posted many stories about his time with the Marines. Most provide detailed accounts of patrols or other outings on which he accompanied U.S. forces.

Funny but I seem to remember that anti-war blogging soldier from out west, Leonard Clark, being arrested and court martialed for allegedly compromising the military operations by doing the same. But then he wasn't working from Pentagon press releases.

Unsurprisingly, the Pentagon finds these pro-war milbloggers reliable, credible and objective, so much so they're now sending their press releases to the whole lot of them. It's certainly working better for them than trying to buy off the foreign press.