The brouhaha surrounding an explosive Rolling Stone profile, leading to the firing and retirement of General Stanley McChrystal, has had a fascinating unintended consequence. All of a sudden truth – or a form of it – has erupted in certain quarters. What a show.
The rare outbreak of candor started when freelance reporter Michael Hastings was granted unfettered access to commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal. What started as a normal interview turned into a month-long juggernaut of travel and drunken hijinks thanks to the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland. The resulting profile yielded a veritable bevy of macho and shockingly candid quotes by McChrystal and his frat boy aides, who call themselves “Team America.” The General and his boys spare no one from their contempt, from Vice President Biden (“bite me”) to Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke to Ambassador Karl Eikenberry to National Security Advisor Jim Jones (“a clown”) and, of course, President Barack Obama. The head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen was spared. In other words, the gang Hastings was covering demonstrated their open contempt for their civilian counterparts and brought into stark relief the deep fissures in the U.S.’s team tasked to “win” in Afghanistan and Pakistan. All in all, the Rolling Stone article was a remarkable and revelatory piece of reporting.
The article had Washington scratching its collective head. What was McChrystal thinking? How could he have let his “boys” engage is such juvenile behavior in the company of a reporter? The hapless press aide who arranged the interview was the first casualty of the public relations disaster. Eventually McChrystal’s head would roll as well.
When the backlash eventually ensued it was not McChrystal’s judgment that was questioned. Hastings became the designated whipping boy.
And what a backlash it’s been. The Washington press corps has taken particular umbrage that a freelance reporter from an unserious, hippie magazine would have the gall to print such an article so embarrassing to its subject. One former Pentagon correspondent chimed in:
The dirty little secret among beat reporters who routinely travel with top military officials is that there’s a unwritten code, a general understanding, that off-color jokes, irreverent banter, and casual conversations are generally off-the-record, or on the deepest of background, unless otherwise agreed upon.
There was navel gazing about the “complex” relationship between source and journalist. There was an utterly bizarre column in the New York Times opining that Hastings broke the rules of etiquette by violating McChrystal’s privacy. Reporters were shocked that Hastings would commit the unimaginable gaffe of burning his bridges in such a spectacular matter (Hastings has made it clear that he has no bridges to burn).
But the most spectacular statement came from CBS News correspondent Lara Logan, the same Lara Logan who “reported” a shameless profile of Blackwater (now Xe) founder Erik Prince, an interview with questions so soft and revealing so little substance that it could have been produced by Blackwater’s PR department. Logan’s statements on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” were the clearest demonstration of the unhealthy dynamic between the mainstream press and the powerful subjects they cover. Her shockingly McCarthy-like observation that “Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has” should ring a warning bell at CBS and serve as an indication that perhaps Logan would be better off running the Pentagon’s Public Affairs office instead of posing as a reporter.
What seems to have been forgotten is that Rolling Stone gave McChrystal the opportunity to refute the article and the quotes before going to press. The General gave the publication the thumbs up. By his own admission he voted for Barack Obama. Evidently he banned Fox News from his headquarters. The General is no babe in the woods when it comes to the media. He shrewdly manipulated the press on a number of notorious occasions, including the Pat Tillman scandal and detainee abuse. He also used the media to strong arm Obama into writing the General a blank check for his operation in Afghanistan.
The only member of this mob who retained his dignity was Hastings himself:
Look, I went into journalism to do journalism, not advertising. My views are critical but that shouldn’t be mistaken for hostile – I’m just not a stenographer. There is a body of work that shows how I view these issues but that was hard-earned through experience, not something I learned going to a cocktail party on f*****g K Street. That’s what reporters are supposed to do, report the story.
So McChrystal is off to write his memoirs and serve on corporate boards, the press have covered themselves in shame and, if there’s any justice in the world, Michael Hastings will be nominated for the Pulitzer. But there’s a silver lining to this clown show.
The U.S. Constitution gives the President, a civilian, the power of Commander in Chief. In that capacity he has the authority to fire military commanders at will. Never in the history of the Republic has an aggrieved military man attempted to overthrow the civilian who has the final word. Generals who felt the tug to aspire to that office have run for it. Some have won, some have lost.
It’s gratifying to know that when it comes to transfer of power, the cynical American public can rest assured that it won’t come at the barrel of a gun.
