What is the point? The identity of the senior defense official would let us determine the level at which the Pentagon is working the public relations issues raised by the Chinese spy balloon in the service of the Biden administration: “A Pentagon spokesperson denied the Washington Free Beacon’s request to identify the senior official, or say whether the individual is a political appointee or career employee.”
Whoever he is, he is in effect lyin’ for Biden. That by itself should be news. And he must be lyin’ because the truth hurts so bad.
[The media will not expose their sources, even when their sources lie to them, which sets up an incentive structure for propagandists and demagogues to easily manipulate news outlets. If they adopted a policy of burning sources that burn them, they would get few leaks — but at least the leaks would be more reliable. One has to think that the reason media outlets don’t change those incentives is because the current incentive structure gives them exactly what they want, too. — Ed]
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