General McChrstal goes to Washington

David Brooks wrote about this in the Times this morning (here).  I wrote the following to the Times in response:

"Well yes David, kvetching is expected in life. What is not is 1. irresponsible journalism and 2. insubordination and those have nothing to do whatsoever with garden variety moaning and groaning.


How naive was the Stone reporter in thinking that his writings wouldn't toss McChrystal under the bus? We see this "See Spot Run, Write Dick Write" journalism everywhere and it isn't the check and balance free press, it is the equal of the CEO thinking only of his bottom line for bonus reasons. I grew up thinking journalism was reporting what happens in life without an angle or slant. I am now wrong in that assumption.


Second, McChrystal has no salvation in his comments. It is immaterial if he is right or wrong in his opinions. He seized a public forum to put his complaints in the light of day, used the Rolling Stone and that scribe like a cheap mule, and it would have been a military insurrection if he were allowed to get away with it. McChrystal isn't a dummy. He knew what he was doing and that is the scary party.


This goes way past the water cooler BS venting session. This was a direct and planned assault on the civilian chain of command over the military - a challenge to the office of the Presidency - and would have put the General in jail or in front of a firing squad in much of the world."

I'm not buying that "good general/good intentions/just a moment of frustration" stuff. Kids do that. College students do that.  A commanding general in the army only does that when he is taking off after his constitutional boss and that is what he did.