Talking Points Memo has been sifting through a recent DOD document dump. And they found one small, hilarious item involving Jed Babbin, now-editor of Human Events.

hi. jed babbin, one of our military analysts, is hosting the michael medved nationally syndicated radio show this afternoon. he would like to see if general casey would be available for a phone interview any time between 3 and 6 pm. topics would be: status of operations in iraq and if troop levels should/can/will be reduced. … please feel free to contact jed directly (contact info below) if the general can/would be available for the interview. this would be a softball interview and the show is 8th or 9th in the nation.

And then there is the response from the higher ups.

Hi Thanks for sending this. Just fyi, probably wouldn’t put “softball” interview in writing. If that got out it would compromise jed and general casey.

Other words that probably shouldn’t openly be used by the conservative press to describe their own coverage: toadying, sycophantic, lickspittle…