Info-Tainment?

The existence of a series of web-based cooking shows on the White House website may seem like an odd use of your tax dollars, but an audience may build for the "Commander in Chef," who is providing his own Food Network-type offerings to the American public. Check out Chef Roland Mesnier's description of a mint-flavored fiasco involving the White House gardeners.

It's not the only example of a federal government site providing network-like content. The Pentagon Channel mimics a commercial TV news program.

Now the Abu Ghraib files posted on Salon.com include video in a regrettable form of broadcast content from the Federal government. What was initially presented as a Jackass or America's Funniest Home Videos taken too far by jail guards is in retrospect clearly official policy about extreme interrogation procedures. Certainly the unwieldy Taguba Report failed to convey that message. Furthermore, this report was not available in a timely manner in anything other than abstracted form on government websites.