Michael Hastings
It’s not that surprising that some in the corporate media, driven either by admiration for ousted Gen. Stanley McChrystal or disdain for Rolling Stone‘s scoop, have rushed in to defend or explain away his behavior. In Saturday’s Washington Post (6/26/10), anonymous military sources tell the newspaper that the comments from McChrystal and his staff were supposed to be off the record:
The command’s own review of events, said the official, who was unwilling to speak on the record, found “no evidence to suggest” that any of the “salacious political quotes” in the article were made in situations in which ground rules permitted Hastings to use the material in his story.
The Post‘s Karen DeYoung and Rajiv Chandrasekaran seem to think some of this military complaining is persuasive. They report that Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings took “minor liberties with the facts,” based on the Post getting their hands on the factchecking emails between Rolling Stone and the military. The magazine asked if McChrystal indeed had voted for Obama–which is something he told Hastings. The military handler responded, “IMPORTANT–PLEASE DO NOT INCLUDE THIS–THIS IS PERSONAL AND PRIVATE INFORMATION AND UNRELATED TO HIS JOB. IT WOULD BE INAPPROPRIATE TO SHARE.”
Rolling Stone published this fact, in spite of the all-caps warning that it would be “INAPPROPRIATE TO SHARE.” But how does reporting a fact someone else doesn’t want reported qualify as taking “liberties with the facts”?
Lara Logan
One gets the impression that many corporate media figures believe the real problem here is Michael Hastings. The right-wing Media Research Center has singled out CBS reporter Lara Logan for approval for her comments on CNN‘s Reliable Sources. Logan seems to believe the military’s argument that the exchanges were meant to be off the record (“Something doesn’t add up here”), in part because she’s apparently not had the same experience with McChrystal and his staff: “I know these people. They never let their guard down like that.”
Logan shows most clearly where she’s coming from with this:
I mean, the question is, really, is what General McChrystal and his aides are doing so egregious, that they deserved to end a career like McChrystal’s? Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has.
In her Reliable Sources appearance, Logan also took issue with comments Hastings once made to GQ that reporters “pretend to be friendly and non-threatening.” Logan said: “That is exactly the kind of damaging type of attitude that makes it difficult for reporters who are genuine about what they do…. Clearly, you’ve got someone who is making friends with you, pretending to be sympathetic, pretending to be something that they’re not.”
She seems to be complaining that people like Hastings pretending to be friends with their sources make it difficult for genuinely sympathetic reporters to really be friends with their sources.
But the really important question nobody is talking about: the Rolling Stone article points to a general who has expanded the mission and is ignoring/avoiding the civilian leadership that is supposed to be running the show.
Funny, nobody in corporate media seems to want to actually talk about the majority of the substance of the article. I guess that part isn’t newsworthy….
I don’t know if they are McChrystal’s media soldiers. I’d more esily believe they are the empire’s media soldiers.
One has to wonder if in time or war General McChrystal and his staff would make the same comments to someone from the opposing force, if they were to “pretend to be friendly and non-threatening”. This was a lapse of judgment. Whether it was a power play, an overblown ego, or carelessness on the general’s part as well as his staff, it reflects very poorly on McChrystal’s command. Had President Obama not taken action, he would have been condoning this same inappropriate behavior on the part of all who report to him.
As far as media response, they jeopardize their own credibility by refusing to recognize standards and twisting facts to feed partisan views.
McChrystal is a narcissist. Any idiot in the limelight who doesn’t want a reporter he’s talking to not to print what he is saying, shouldn’t say it. It’s really that simple.
I’m still thinking that the best idea is the McChrystal knew the war as unwinnable and wanted out. He’s no dummy!
As Harry Truman said about Douglas MacArthur: “I’ll Fire the SOB!”
Generals who grandstand, get just what they deserve!
FYI: I’m a veteran of 28 years in the US Air Force, 1958-1986.
I think McChrystal was making a bold military type maneuver. If his criticisms were ignored by the President, he could continue to be the hero of the war but not responsible for the failures he had criticized. Now that he has been relieved of command, he can become the darling of the right-wing. He outranks Lt. Col. Oliver North.
There is no getting around the fact that the military is subservient to the civilian authority, embedded reporters or no. Obvious by the fact Mr McChrystal was fired.
There are those in the military, all the way up to the generals and the chiefs in the pentagon and the CIA, that have run rampant since they got away with assassinating Kenedy, who need some serious choke-collar jerking. I seriously back Obama in efforts to reign in these egomaniac Rambo types.
McChrystal had already embarrassed himself with inappropriate/insubordinate public comments 6 months BEFORE the current dustup. So he had to know what he was doing this time…….and with whom (a reporter from a famously left of center magazine) he was doing it. There was nothing accidental about this. Of course, if he and his staff had made the same “gaffs,” with Lara Logan, she presumably would have desperately tried to scrub up after her lords and masters…..Whether they wanted to be scrubbed or not.
Another way of saying it is that McChrystal has realized he’s doomed to failure in Afghanistan, but he doesn’t want to be pulled out some day for failing or losing. He doesn’t want the stink of failure on him. Better, he’s thinking, if he postures, is pulled out for arrogance and insurbordination, and thus creates a rightwing brand which may some day snag him a seat in the Senate…..
My recollecion is that McChrystal was touting for more troops 8 weeks after he made a deal with Obama and Petraeus. He bad mouthed Biden in London. Strange that he didn’t eat during the day so that he could do his job while hungry … maybe Obama forgot Ceasar’s admonition to:”…beware of lean and hungry men …”
I have spent 75 years fighting the fascist criminals intent on raping the world even of its ability to host life. I know how to stop it, to give it time to heal. I have better use for the remainder of my time arguing over a password that, if granted, will be obsolete tomorrow.