While it is completely appropriate for the Pentagon to lay out rules regarding the press and tactically sensitive information, what should not be done, but has been done anyway, is to have their work screened by a public relations firm in order to determine if they are sufficiently “friendly” to the military, as the has been done.

What’s more, it’s not just any whore house public relations firm, it’s the Rendon Group, who manufactured the Iraqi National Congress and provided part of the excuse for the invasion of Iraq, as well as being a CIA front for ginning up the invasion of Panama.

It should noted that similar “rating” of journalists resulted in a Stars and Stripes reporter being denied an embed:

U.S. Army officials in Iraq engaged in a similar vetting practice two months ago, when they barred a Stars and Stripes reporter from embedding with a unit of the 1st Cavalry Division because the reporter “refused to highlight” good news that military commanders wanted to emphasize.

The contract has now been canceled, but anyone associated with this program should be fired, and to the degree that this violates the law, or military regulations, they should be prosecuted.