The set-up:

(Jed) Babbin is an ardent detractor of what he describes as the "527 Media", which he considers to be composed of The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC, CBS and NBC. Babbin considers those outlets as nothing more than an extension of the Democratic National Party and charges that they willfully distort truth to pursue their own agenda. Furthermore, Babbin argues that the only way to disrupt the 527 Media's "narrative" is for elected Republican officials to tell the "truth" about current situations (such as the conflict in Iraq) without it being passed through the filter of the 527 Media.

The punchline:

Back in June 2006 there's this email ...

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.

A short time later a press flack from the Office of the Secretary of Defense writes back ...

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.

Yeah. That would probably be embarrassing...