The whole thing is spot-on, here’s a taste:
As to this whole “unspoken agreement” business: the reason Lara Logan thinks this is because she’s like pretty much every other “reputable” journalist in this country, in that she suffers from a profound confusion about who she’s supposed to be working for. I know this from my years covering presidential campaigns, where the same dynamic applies. Hey, assholes: you do not work for the people you’re covering! Jesus, is this concept that fucking hard? On the campaign trail, I watch reporters nod solemnly as they hear about the hundreds of millions of dollars candidates X and Y and Z collect from the likes of Citigroup and Raytheon and Archer Daniels Midland, and it blows my mind that they never seem to connect the dots and grasp where all that money is going. The answer, you idiots, is that it’s buying advertising! People like George Bush, John McCain, Barack Obama, and General McChrystal for that matter, they can afford to buy their own P.R. — and they do, in ways both honest and dishonest, visible and invisible.
They don’t need your help, and you’re giving it to them anyway, because you just want to be part of the club so so badly. Disgustingly, that’s really what it comes down to. Most of these reporters just want to be inside the ropeline so badly, they want to be able to say they had that beer with Hillary Clinton in a bowling alley in Scranton or whatever, that it colors their whole worldview. God forbid some important person think you’re not playing for the right team!
This is via a tweet and re-tweet from a couple of local reporters who aren’t interested in being a part of some slimy little club, unlike Ms Logan.
geg6
Taibbi pwns her but good, doesn’t he? And pretty much the entire Village right here:
This is so right. They’re the nerds who will do literally anything to be one of the Kool Kidz. And they are so stupid, crass, and needy they don’t even realize that they never will be.
celticdragonchick
Ms Logan has a vested interest in keeping her military contacts, and she literally depends on the military for her survival while reporting from war zones. Her priorities are going to be markedly different then those of a reporter from Rolling Stone who will likely never do another military story again and can afford to burn bridges.
El Cid
He’s right, but I don’t think it’s solely, or even primarily, the fault of individual media figures. It’s the way their bosses think, it’s the system of incentives and encouragement and disincentives they’re given, it’s the outlook of the owners of the billion dollar media.
Their bosses are the establishment, not a bunch of rabble rousing bravehearts.
Sure, you get noble exceptions, and partly those help to falsely portray the billion dollar media (and their public media copycats) as truly independent, such so that Republicans can still yell about them being fifth column homosexual pagan anti-Creationist pro-jihad ideologues.
Hunter Gathers
@celticdragonchick: You imply that if she doesn’t slob the knob of the military, they’ll let her die in a mortar attack in the green zone.
Allan
@celticdragonchick: So you’re saying the practice of “embedding” makes journalism impossible?
geg6
@Allan:
Whocoodanode?
plasticgoat
Where have all the real journalists gone? Rolling Stone? Sad day in America when the establishment journalists give up the notion of a free and independent press just to become part of the club.
barneyG2000
I think it has more to do with access. These are beat reporters. Piss-off the wrong person with tough questions and see your access get reduced. Without it they don’t have a job.
celticdragonchick
@Hunter Gathers:
I am saying you tend to identify with the people who are protecting you. We are social creatures and that is how we roll, so to speak.
geg6
@barneyG2000:
This is such complete and utter bullshit.
My mother was a beat reporter. She never sucked up to or covered up for a single one of the local government idiots she reported on and, shockingly, they still talked to her on the record and off.
Any journalist who claims this bullshit argument is a fucking liar, simply covering up their naked desire to be one of the Kool Kidz.
Lee from NC
@barneyG2000:
Dumb approach. So you’re saying that reporters shouldn’t piss off anyone so that said reporter can continue to transcribe whatever BS is handed to them by the people they have “access” to?
I don’t remember Woodward and Bernstein cozying up to Nixon with promises of not embarassing him.
Paris
One of the tweeters is a local reporter. She is not popular with the local elites. The Superintendent of the city schools won’t talk to her but I don’t think she cares. She talks to the lunch ladies and gets the real scoops there.
celticdragonchick
@Allan:
It makes investigative journalism within the military itself impossible.
That being said, imbedded reporters are often quite good at reporting stories in foreign areas they would never have access to, and also reporting on surficial stories regarding the military. You have to accept that there are certain stories that they will not be willing to deal with because it would destroy their ability to report in that field again. I read that the same thing happened with Barry Bonds in the Baseball doping story. Reporters who needed locker room access were being threatened with lock out by Bonds. It took two reporters who weren’t afraid to burn bridges and who never figured to do sports stories again anyway to break the story.
celticdragonchick
@Lee from NC:
Wrong example.
Ernie Pyle in WW II would be a closer fit…and nobody ever called him a hack. I would bet real money that he would not have reported those quotes from a general until after the war, however (which he did not survive to see in any event).
gypsy howell
@Hunter Gathers:
Yeah, like reporters being targeted and killed by our own military hasn’t ever happened before.
My favorite Lara moment- when she disparaged Hastings for not having “served his country” like the exalted McChrystal. I am so fucking sick and tired of hearing all this bullshit about “serving your country.”
The military hasn’t “served our country,” much less “defended our freedoms,” in a long, long goddamn time. They’re “serving” somebody, but I can guarantee you it ain’t us.
Too bad. At one point years ago I thought she was OK. But apparently either I was fooled then (probably), or she has been assimilated. Either way, screw off Logan. You’re not doing us any favors with your “reporting” from the war zone.
celticdragonchick
@geg6:
Did your mom live and work with them for extended periods of time while being shot at?
Different social dynamic and different social outcome.
Hunter Gathers
@celticdragonchick: I was a news director in radio for several years. I never kissed ass or slobbed the knob of anyone I covered. Ever. Lara Logan is a whore.
Athenae
Kiss your mom for me, because: Exactly. THEY NEED YOU more than you need them. Nobody gets fired from a real journalism job because some higher-up asshole won’t talk to them. In fact, getting blackballed by a PR flack was considered a badge of honor, places where I worked. Getting yelled at by a US Senator or somebody equally prestigious got you toasted at the bar after work. Getting somebody fired or indicted won you freaking awards.
You know, this is where the corporate destruction of newsrooms comes into play because if you had a newsroom full of people like Taibbi and Hastings, and you came back all flushed and twitterpated because Stan McChrystal pissed on you as he walked by, you’d be mercilessly mocked until you learned the error of your ways. Your readers and your colleagues would keep you honest and remind you who your true constituency is. Destroy and demoralize those people, and the cocktail weenies at McCain’s parties start looking pretty tasty. You come back from that party to a newsroom full of people who are burned out, pissed off, don’t give a shit anymore, and are just scrambling to hold onto their little piece in the world, and you get crap like this.
None of which excuses Logan, who’s decided past good work is no reason not to become a total shill. Depressing. I wonder if this is what she wanted to be when she grew up.
A.
barneyG2000
No, I’m disagree with the argument from the tweets (part of the in-crowd). They are motivated by access and not popularity.
I’m not defending their actions. I expect more from them.
PS, I don’t recall W&B ever interviewing Nixon as part of their Watergate investigation.
geg6
@celticdragonchick:
You are simply wrong here. It makes getting soundbites from the brass impossible. Big fucking deal. But there is nothing to stop a good investigative journalist from finding out pretty much anything they need to know. The last people who are going to help out an investigative journalist interested in getting his/her story are people like the brass, no matter how much that reporter sucks up to them.
These kinds of stories are broken by journalists who talk to the brass last of all their sources. They talk to anyone and everyone else besides the brass to get the real story and then talk to the brass to get the official story. Then they compare and contrast.
Any reporter who states the unmitigated bullshit Logan spit out here is not longer a reporter. They are stenographers and no one should trust a word they say or write. Not one word.
tomjones
I’m sorry, but Matt Taibbi just comes across like too much of an unctuous prick for me to take any of his points seriously.
Plus, most of his “points” here are little more than the emerging progressive CW, which is every bit as boring and unremarkable as the MSM CW.
celticdragonchick
@gypsy howell:
You can seriously go fuck yourself.
However the military may be misused, those men and women take and oath to defend the Constitution, and serve and defend their country, including pricks like you.
geg6
@celticdragonchick:
Actually, yes she did. It wasn’t military but police actions, but same principle.
ricky
@geg6:
So let’s use high school class analogies to put down reporters for their high school behavior. Because, you know, nerds really want to be Kool. And really Kool guys are like Taibbi. Like, brilliant. Ya know?
Athenae
None of which obligates her to go on TV and trash Hastings. She could, if she wants to stay out of the fray, simply shut the fuck up and keep her contacts that way. Did the Pentagon’s PR dude call her up and say, “Either go and make an ass out of yourself ripping one of your colleagues, or you won’t be welcome here anymore?”
A.
Culture of Truth
Too bad – I think Logan has done good journalism and is, um, easy on the eyes as well. Oh, and I love her accent.
El Cid
The emerging progressive CW on establishment-pleasing reporters has been pretty constant in critiques of the U.S. press since about the 1920s when the business media killed off the more-subscribed labor and ethnic and muckraking press.
This isn’t new. I. F. Stone specifically rejected access, and instead plowed through government documents and Congressional committees and was constantly better at analysis than those who sidled up next to the powerful.
There certainly are valuable things about reporters interviewing and following the powerful, but it really depends on who’s doing it and why.
TR
@geg6:
Yes and yes.
celticdragonchick
@Hunter Gathers:
Then that is your opinion.
*shrug*
I am simply explaining why somebody else may disagree, and why there is a rational and even valid reason for her viewpoint. I may not agree with it, but I understand that it has nothing to do with being a “cool kid”.
Jason Bylinowski
Pan-Blogospheric Request for Moratorium: for the phrase “spot-on”.
Secondary request: for the word “moratorium”.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Lara Logan is a good war reporter. She said something dumb, but that doesn’t change the fact she is a good war reporter. Not the kind that sits around with the brass all day playing grab ass. She does most of her reporting from the field where there are bullets flying around. I think the Stockholm Syndrome analogy from being embedded with grunts on missions is accurate. And also totally human with people who are protecting your life.
Now who is the next peeps on the list to fillet. Let’s keep this thing moving. Goldberg is an ass, so is Sully sometimes, and TNC has not lived up to lofty expectations. It is a target rich environs out there folks/ Hop to.
celticdragonchick
@Athenae:
That is true. I suspect she is over-identifying with the people in the military she covers.
Again, this isn’t about the “cool kids” thing. It is about a loss of objectivity.
Brien Jackson
@celticdragonchick:
Yeah, this is what I think too. It’s sort of pointless to criticize beat reporters for working within the constraints of their role; the real problem is that the overall industry overvalues beat reporters and daily publications, and undervalues freelance/investigative reporting.
TR
I bet if you asked most members of the White House Press Corpse to explain how Woodward and Bernstein broke the Watergate scandal, they’d probably say that Nixon explained it all for them over ribs at Bob Haldeman’s Memorial Day barbecue.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@geg6:
Not even close to same principle. jeebus fucking christ.
Kryptik
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Logan is a good reporter. Which makes it even more frustrating when she comes out with something as ass-stupid as what she said in comments about Hastings.
Guster
@celticdragonchick: I think that the military has served our country in the last, say, twenty years–mostly because I think it’s a valuable social institution that does some good domestically–but I’m not confident that the overall impact (given the money spent there instead of elsewhere, the ‘misuse,’ etc.) has been positive, on balance, and I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Brien Jackson
@geg6:
Local government isn’t remotely the same as national beat reporting. At the local level, you’re probably looking at just a couple of media outlets, maybe a half dozen or so in a mid-sized market. At the national level, there are dozens and dozens of publications with their own reporters on the national beat, so it’s much easier to avoid an individual the people being covered want to isolate.
geg6
@celticdragonchick:
What the hell do you think the cool kids thing is all about?
It’s a loss of objectivity due to both over-identifying with those in power and wishing they were one of those really cool guys with a lotta power.
ricky
@tomjones:
You know, they never put partially uncovered pricks, unctuous, flaccid, or erect, on the cover of Rolling Stone.
Just female tits and ass. Those sell more copies and that sells more advertising. Which pays Taibbi’s salary. But he writes for love and not money. And he never takes a dump. But it would smell like roses.
celticdragonchick
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
I was thinking something along those lines.
Lee from NC
@barneyG2000:
Exactly my point. They didn’t bother interviewing Nixon. They did real reporting, not partying around the pool with the Kool Kidz. Real reporting is possible WITHOUT sucking up to power, whether it’s the military command structure (as celticdragonchick seems to think reporters need to do) or powerful politicians.
Evinfuilt
Its hard to not understand where the sellouts come from.
When most of the money to be made is working for companies that are owned by the Military Industrial Complex, well, “follow the money”; we’ve got a bunch of greedy journalists.
Guster
And doesn’t Hersh still get access? He’s not perfect, I know; but is he not a counter-example?
gypsy howell
@celticdragonchick:
Sorry, I’ll stand by that. I feel sorry for the schlubs in the field, but that doesn’t change the sad fact that what they’re doing is not “defending our freedoms.” What part of our Constitution are they defending in Iraq? Afghanistan? What were they defending in Vietnam?
Sanctimonious worship of the military is a huge part of the problem we face in this country. If we could ever get to the point where we can stop pretending that the horror we’re unleashing on the rest of the world through our military is some noble and heroic undertaking, maybe we could dedicate the money, resources, R&D and human lives we currently flush down the hole of the Pentagon and “defense” industry towards making this country better for the people who live in it.
Jim C
Where and when did Lara Logan “serve” her country? I’m searching every profile and biographical sketch of Lara Logan I can find. Is it her time as a restaurant hostess in the U.S., a Parisian au pair, or her swimsuit model days?
Honestly, who is she to talk?
celticdragonchick
@geg6:
Really? The other folks here seem to think that the “cool kids” narrative means getting shot with a water gun by Raum Emanuel at a Georgetown summer party where the press and the White House elites have fun in the sun while ditching any pretense of being anything but a tool for power.
Ms Logan may be guilty of a venial sin compared to that spectacle, though I doubt that she is consciously trying to join the Raum Emaunel water gun party crowd.
Culture of Truth
Interesting to me, that Thomas Ricks pointed out on MTP, the military folks all get it – McChrystal had to go.
Beltway pundits took umbrage because they’re so in thrall to the uniform, I suspect.
Some would say he’s a good General who said something, or several things, that were stupid. But that misses the larger point — that saying those things, out loud, in front of other people, including a reporter, he is, by virture of that alone, not a good General, not serving his commander well, and such behavior would not be tolerated in the lower ranks and cannot be higher up.
So, yes, even if you are Logan feel bad for McChrystal and think it’s an unfortunate loss, it’s entirely his fault, and no one else’s.
Lee from NC
@celticdragonchick:
You’re really conflating “the military”, which I took to mean the current military-industrial complex, with the individual men and women on the ground. It’s possible to abhor what “the military” is doing while still supporting the actual soldiers in said military.
celticdragonchick
@gypsy howell:
I’ll stand by my assessment of you.
ricky
The problem with the reporters being criticized here is very much the same as with those employing the Kool Kids analysis in commentary here.
celticdragonchick
@Lee from NC:
I didn’t get that distinction from the comment.
LarsThorwald
I said it yesterday, and I will say it again.
This is about reporters who sit at, or think they sit at, the Big Table table, and sneer down their nose at the beat reporters at the Kids’ Table.
Logan got soft and became all network, and now she’s at the big table, and she is sneering at a freelance reporter who stone cold beat her and got the story of the year.
And Logan knows it, and Taibbi knows she knows it.
I said it yesterday and I will say it again: This is about the lazy and the hungry.
tomjones
@Lee from NC:
So what? It’s also possible WHILE sucking up to power. I was a journalist many moons ago (OK, college journalist, tee hee), and I reported on politicians, scientists, professors, etc.
You know what they all had in common? They gave me better material with a little ego strokage/evident empathy/feigned interest.
I sucked up, in other words, and it improved my work.
geg6
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Oh, so being shot at while covering riots and being bunkered in with the cops doing most of the shooting for days at a time is not the same as being shot at in Afghanistan. Perhaps.
And you are acting as if Logan is any different than the Villagers we all hate. She is not, simply by virtue of sometimes covering combat, doing or saying anything different from them. It’s just in a different venue. The journalistic standards aren’t suspended because you decided you wanna be along with the combat troops.
It’s the exact same standard–whether in a municipal courtroom, the halls of Congress or the White House, or riding along with an infantry company. Your job is find the story and report the facts as they truly are. It is not to find false equivalencies, to cover up for those in power, or to defend the subjects of your reporting against others who are writing truthful stories on them that you don’t like.
Lara Logan, right here, is doing all things you aren’t supposed to do, if you consider yourself a journalist. She has lost any credibility as a reporter here. You may like her, you may wanna fuck her, or you may just like her Aussie accent, but that doesn’t change the facts.
@Brien Jackson:
Actually, you’ve got it exactly backwards. Much harder to get the real stuff on a big fish in a small pond. Much easier for the guppy to swim under the surface when there are millions of guppies all around.
BGinCHI
From the wiki entry on LL:
“Logan’s husband is a U.S. Federal Government defense contractor from Texas, whom she met in Iraq.”
Well, at least she didn’t waste her time there.
ricky
@Lee from NC:
You are right. Woodward and Bernstein did not cozy up with Nixon with promises not to embarass him.
They became celebrities and embarassed their own selves.
Maude
@geg6:
How about all reporters report facts and get up off their behinds to get the news. Lazy.
If all reporters did their jobs, then the people they cover would have to talk to them.
Your mom had it right.
The beat reporters ought to be asking Gibbs and Obama about subjects they cover. Not the WHPC that only is interested in itself.
Laertes
@Athenae:
I’d like to believe that this is true, but the evidence isn’t good. “Access” is the coin of the realm, and the movers and shakers can dispense or withhold it as they will.
Sure, there’s the occasional screw-up. Hastings was a mistake. But mostly the brass will have no trouble figuring out who the Lara Logans are. Friendly reporters get tasty exclusives. Troublemakers get nothing. Ultimately, the co-opted journalists rise to the top.
Witness, for instance, Jon Stewart’s montage of horrified talking heads going on about “access.” Was I the only one who detected a bit of schadenfreude there? Sure, they were angry at Hastings for biting the hand that feeds them all, but I sensed some bitterness at the brass as well. “We polish your knob every goddamn day. And you let THIS guy in? Serves you right that he burned you. You should have stuck with someone safe like us.”
jrg
@celticdragonchick:
Really? Because it seems like every time the military gets involved with something, we start burning Dixie Chicks albums and accusing anti-war protesters of “hating America”.
I’m not saying that the military causes this kind of thing, but they are definitely used as a tool to accomplish that sort of thing. Claiming that the military “defends the Constitution” is short-sighted. The military implements the will of it’s civilian leadership, regardless of that leadership’s commitment to the Constitution.
“…the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Hermann Goering
geg6
@celticdragonchick:
Are you just playing stupid here?
In Logan’s beat, the Kool Kidz are the brass. I bet drinking Bud Light Lime with the Chief and his lackeys is simply their version of a Rahm super-soaking.
calling all toasters
mistermix–
I cannot believe this. Lara Logan has been among the (if not the) most courageous correspondents on our Middle Eastern adventures. She is not some Washington hack who lives by cultivating sources: she covers the actual action on the ground and has a long record disproving Bush Administration bullshit. OTOH, if Hastings getting drunk with McChrystal and catching him saying a poopy is your idea of important journalism, maybe you should restrict your posts to interpreting the President’s mood and the First Lady’s wardrobe.
Lara Logan at work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jcdx175bBPg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V4lDrbR3rI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-MRiZPZfuA&feature=related
ricky
@geg6:
Everybody hates the nerds. They want to be like the Kool Kidz. Who aren’t really cool. Which is why its good to hate them. Cuz that’s really cool.
RSR
>>interrupt these drunken assholes and say, “Excuse me, fellas, I know we’re all having fun and all, but you’re saying things that may not be in your best interest
being stupid isn’t a crime, therefore, you don’t get Mirandized
celticdragonchick
@geg6:
I think we identified your problem right there. Instead of black helicopters or truther theories, you ‘hate’ all msm “villagers” and are incapable of seeing them as individuals with motives that may be wildly different from the power fellating “cool kids” narrative you want to assign to them. In a way, you appear to be just as prone to conspiracy foolishness and misdirected anger as the black helicopter or truther crowd.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@geg6:
Stay classy now geg. You simply don’t have a clue what you are talking about. A reporter like Logan makes a dumb comment and you and all the other cheeto heroes are ready to pronounce judgment regardless of everythng else they do and have done. Kool Kids my ass. You are the kool kids wannebe’s, full of instant judgment from tiny minds and pious indignation.
And comparing being embedded on a patrol in Iraq, or Afghanistan, with anything that happens on American streets just shows just how dumb you are.
gypsy howell
@Lee from NC:
‘m kind of curious to know what people mean specifically by “It’s possible to abhor what “the military” is doing while still supporting the actual soldiers in said military.”
I’m not trying to be antagonistic here. Aren’t the “actual soldiers” the ones actually DOING the stuff you abhor? If you hate what “the military” is doing, and you think it’s abhorrent and possibly immoral, then what part of what the soldiers are doing do you support?
I never quite understand what people mean when they say that.
It sounds nice though.
mr. whipple
I don’t think she got ‘beat’. With the access she has, I’m sure she’s heard a lot more than what was reported in RS. She just chooses not to report it.
homerhk
I can’t really fault him but I really don’t like Taibbi’s ‘reporting’. As someone who has given – very brief unimportant and boring – comments to the press from time to time I do understand however that the press will tend to focus on the most trivial thing if they think that’s what is going to be interesting to readers. Given that, I think this whole reporters with honour thing underlying the criticism of Logan is way hypocritical and off base. Taibbi has his own agenda and for that he doesn’t necessarily need access or anything else. Logan has her own agenda too which means she prioritises different things. It’s stupid to pretend that either one of them is more honourable than the other.
I will also say that it’s not as if Michael Hastings committed some valiant and brave – truth to power – type journalism. In reality he ‘got in’ with McChrystal and his staff (and anyone who thinks that he wasn’t chummy with them or leave things out of his article that may have been even more damaging just isn’t thinking straight) and his subjects were extremely unwise in letting him see and hear what he saw and heard. It’s sad that the ‘news’ of this article wasn’t really anything substantively to do with the Afghanistan war but about personalities – which is the obsession of political journalism in my view.
GregB
Lara is obviously a hack who’s furthering the agenda of the military industrial complex which, shock of shocks, also helps her maintain her job and also helps with her husbands’ financial bottom line.
It really is that simple.
If Lara Logan is such a brilliant reporter can anyone point out some story that she broke? Anyone?
celticdragonchick
@geg6:
Uh huh.
I’m having trouble taking your opinions of her very seriously. You need to reset your hate filter.
gwangung
Yeah, so what? If she says something stupid, then she should be called out on that.
What? Are you saying that she shouldn’t EVER be called out for saying something dumb?
Et Tu Brutus?
@gypsy howell: I think you’re right; albeit, the problem goes far deeper than the military, and speaks to the fact the government in virtually all departments does not serve the ‘people’, i.e. the ordinary citizenry, but rather the corporate citizenry. The fundamental error of attribution most of us have made of late is that we seem to think this is a recent development in our nation’s evolution: Bushco or Nixon, etc, etc. Actually, the evolution has been in who is being served:from wealthy agriculturalist, to wealthy industrialist, to national corporatist, to the presently emerging trans-national corporatist- not in the inclination to serve the powerful. Remember who the founding fathers actually considered worthy of having the privilege of voting… and it all begins to make more sense.
celticdragonchick
@homerhk:
Good analysis.
Lee from NC
@ricky:
LOL, you got that right.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@mr. whipple: Those who have been soldiers, now that bitching about your superiors to each other in private is practically a religious ritual in the military, especially the Army. But bitching with a reporter present is either epically stupid or planned as an escape route from a no win situation. And because it came from the top command in Afghan. it could not be tolerated being aired in public.
No doubt Logan has heard all this before, and was just not interested in reporting it, because it is so common and part of military culture .
ellaesther
I’m sorry, but titling anything “So-and-So, You Suck” (and then tweeting that very title across the cyberverse) — no matter WHO the So-and-So may happen to be — is a sign of an underdeveloped mind and a lack of writing skills.
The man is so smart and about 80% of the time is absolutely right in his analysis — and his apparent inability to draw a humble breath and/or leave behind schoolyard taunts makes him impossible to read.
celticdragonchick
@Et Tu Brutus?:
Jesus wept.
Are we going to hear about the Illuminatti next? Sooper sekrit industrialist society meetings in Vienna and London where the next brilliant military adventure is planned?
It all begins to make sense!
calling all toasters
@gwangung: She’s being accused of being corrupt because she doesn’t approve of pretending to be someone’s friend in order to get a “gotcha!” quote. I do have a problem with that.
celticdragonchick
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
I am going to shamelessly borrow that for future use.
Culture of Truth
Homerhk,
That may be the news that came out of this, but I think the entire Hastings article was important journalism and was about the ultimate direction of the Afghan war in addition to the more personality-driven parts.
Allan
@BGinCHI: Lara was a very busy beaver in Iraq.
Brien Jackson
@celticdragonchick:
Yeah, I’ll agree with that too. It’s sort of like criticizing a good relief pitcher for only throwing 85 innings in a season; that’s not really his fault, it’s just the nature of his job. It’s silly to criticize someone for working within their role. The problem comes when teams pay relievers more money than their role warrants, in the same way that, as I said earlier, national journalism is placing way too much importance on beat reporters.
That said, I’ll also say there’s no reason for Logan to say anything now.
celticdragonchick
@Brien Jackson:
I agree.
Allan
@calling all toasters: False premise underlying Logan’s critique of Hastings. Hastings has been quite clear that the people he quoted were unabashed in their comments from the moment he arrived.
Hastings didn’t fellate anyone to get his story.
That’s Logan’s MO.
liberty60
@Lee from NC:
Oh come on now; its perfectly understandable to “support” the grunts, as in, not vilifying some 21 year old lance corporal, when the real crime is sending him there in the first place.
@gypsy howell:
There is truth to this- the automatic unquestioning hero worship of the military is a profoundly un-American attitude- by that I mean a [small “r”] republican society rejects claims of authority and blind obedience.
However noble and courageous the young men and women who serve may be, it is true that the military establishment has NOT been used to defend America since WWII.
Instead it has been used to advance various goals in sometimes well meaning-but-stupid ways [Vietnam], sometimes cynical and craven ways [Iraq], but what we are doing now has almost nothing to do with “defending America”, much less the Constitution.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@celticdragonchick:
A-fricken-men.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
Logan sparked the match when she disparaged what a journalist was doing, just because it showed the Brass in bad light (which subsequently drags her previously Good reporting into question about its impartiality).
As much as I used to Hate Taibbi back during the 2008 elections (smug kid with no real reporting behind his snarky too-cool attitude), he’s really a reporter that all new journalists should be emulating. His approach should be the approach that all true journalists take, even if Taibbi isn’t the best at it, he could teach other journalists how to do their jobs. Scahill has always been better as a journo.
I find it surprising that there seems to be a strong line of “new” journalists that are more confrontational and questioning of authority. The defining line seems to be if a Journalist hit a big media outlet after or around the time of the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Interesting.
ricky
Journalists covering journalists covering journalists questioning jounalists ethics covering anything.
Mama Gump was on to something.
Guster
@liberty60: Absolutely. There’s a faint echo of the right-wing saying that if you hate BP you’re attacking the guys who work on the oil rigs.
calling all toasters
@Allan: Wow, you really are scum.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@ricky:
I remarked on this dubious development yesterday. Weird and creepy, with the blogosphere cheering it on like crackers at a cock fight.
ricky
Imagine spending you whole professional life writing about the day to day doings of idiots. It would probably influence the way you raised children.
brother cod
It seems to be more a question of whom you identify with.
From what I can see, Lara Logan has done some good reporting, but reporting that doesn’t name and shame people in power. She has courage and guts – of the physical kind – but unfortunately, all those things become irrelevant with her point of view – as establishment spokesperson.
As Guster mentioned – Sy Hersh should have NO access at all, but he manages to churn out a scoop every couple of years.
I think that there will be several lower level personnel in Afghanistan who will be more willing to talk to Hastings as a result of this.
And any smart political operator will give Hastings access – because of the extra credibility a report from Hastings will now bring…
DPirate
So, toadyism. Tell me, is that why your contributors never take a stance on anything they blog about?
gypsy howell
@celticdragonchick:
You don’t have to get all ‘Illuminati’ to realize that our military does not serve us, if by “us” you mean the citizens of the United States who pay their salaries and benefits. The military-defense industry has taken on a life of its own. It perpetuates wars for its own bottom line, and for the bottom line of transnational companies like ExxonMobil who like the idea that we taxpayers have to pony up to protect their interests across the globe.
Isn’t it great that we’re going to spend billions — oh heck, I’m sure it’ll be trillions by the time we’re done! — to conquer territory, and then build roads and infrastructure in Afghanistan where, GOSH! they have huge mineral deposits and a nice route for a pipeline? Who do you suppose might be the big beneficiary of the expenditure of all that blood and treasure?
The military stopped having as its primary goal upholding and defending of the Constitution, and defending our freedoms a long time ago. It’d be good if all of us rubes could see past the pro-military propaganda spewed at us day after day after day, to figure that out.
Lee from NC
@liberty60:
“@Lee from NC:
Oh come on now; its perfectly understandable to “support” the grunts, as in, not vilifying some 21 year old lance corporal, when the real crime is sending him there in the first place.”
That’s what I was saying. Maybe I typoed. I can’t be bothered to scroll up and look.
ricky
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Cheeto chompers at a keyboard have replaced crackers at a cockfight in our electronic age.
However, the best reporting I ever read on politics was a biography written by a journalist whose daily beat was prize fighting.
daveNYC
It was a lot more than just a dumb comment. A dumb comment is what got Weigel fired. She went on national TV and totally ripped on Hastings.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Lee from NC:
I disagree, unless the military is actively defying civilian leadership. Don’t bash the military – which IS the troops – when you mean to bash the decisions of idiot politicians and pundits whose insecurity with their manhood pushed us into a war. It isn’t the military’s fault that we went to Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghan. They were ordered to go.
Allan
@calling all toasters: You got nothing, huh?
ricky
@daveNYC:
Doing it on television for the money is honorable. Doing it through e-mail because you mean it is a whole nother story.
calling all toasters
@Allan: You made a gratuitous ‘beaver’ reference. You said Logan “fellated” her way to stories, because her sex life got in the news. You ARE scum, now own it.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
p.s. All the sexist comments about how Logan got where she was make me ill. Knock it off.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I say we install audio chips on all actors in this American play.
Reporters, politicians, military personnel, etc etc. and route it into one big listening station and we can spend our days placing bets on who screws what pooch, and cheer, and talk about how awful one side or the other is. And how great those of them that we approve. And watch all of them make mea culpas for saying dumb personal thoughts shit, and also witness public hangings for those who don’t, on not well enough. To hell with acts of governance, that is so boriiiiing. It’s the behind the scenes personal discussions where the money is. Ought to be fun.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@daveNYC: I was talking about her musings on firing McChrystal and her questioning why that had to happen. That was dumb imo. If she wants to go on teevee and bash Hasting’s that is her right, and may be dumb or not, depending on personal preferences. I could care less about this shit slinging by bloggers and reporters at each other. It is utter nonsense, but everyone has a right to speak their minds in public, except military officers, of course.
geg6
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
I like pie, too.
Laertes
However fine Logan’s past work may be, she’s showing her cards here. She’s gone native. She’s reflexively taking the side of the brass. Worse, without evidence she’s accusing Hastings of lying. This is poor judgment on her part, and shows that she’s taking it personally.
She’s taking it personally.
That’s what shows that she’s gone over to the dark side. Whatever may have come before, from here on out, we know that Logan ultimately sees herself as more akin to the people she reports on than to the people she reports for.
“The only way a reporter should look at a politician is down.” – H. L. Mencken
Once a reporter loses sight of that–once they start identifying with their great and powerful subjects–they’re useless.
celticdragonchick
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac:
Hear, hear! I’ve seen enough bullshit like “whore”, “sucking cock” etc to make me seriously question the real reasons some people here are angry at her.
Downpuppy
If you haven’t read Hastings piece (hard to imagine, but I suspect a few of you haven’t), it’s an awful lot like Charge of the Light Brigade. A bunch of gung ho cowboys locked into a doomed policy. The really damaging stuff about McChrystal is a page or so of old news about Tillman, Special Forces, and some stupidity around Iraq. Hastings seems to actually like the guy.
If we weren’t obviously losing the war, (100 NATO deaths in June broke the old monthly record by over 20) it would have all blown over.
Corner Stone
@Culture of Truth:
Of course it was. And anyone who dismisses it as pure “personality” spats is missing what just happened.
geg6
@celticdragonchick:
Well, I guess not everyone hates stenographers. But I do. Perhaps because I’ve actually seen real reporters at work. Who, exactly, among the Villagers isn’t worthy of complete and utter disdain, pray tell?
Et Tu Brutus?
@celticdragonchick: Good one ( wish I could find a better way to show how humorous I find your comment other than ROTFLMAO, but hey, I am, as you so deftly pointed out, a pointy headed conspiracy theorist of limited imagination ;>). May you sleep well tonight secure in the knowledge that yes, our government has your best interests at heart; that those in power don’t view us ‘little people’ as anything other than cattle to be led to the voting booth, Walmart, or the Induction center in service of something other than the ‘National Good’; and that those whom suggest otherwise are espousing excrement exclaiming secret societies are behind it all (hey, that might make a nice little bedtime prayer). Jesus wept indeed.
Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
“Where and when did Lara Logan “serve” her country? I’m searching every profile and biographical sketch of Lara Logan I can find. Is it her time as a restaurant hostess in the U.S., a Parisian au pair, or her swimsuit model days?”
Well, after 9/11, Logan, who was a freelancer, knew that Afghanistan was where the story was, and got her ass there for the story.
I’ve got more respect for her than Hastings.
And Taibbi is as overwrought as always. What Logan is saying is that she doesn’t believe that Hasting’s claim that he didn’t have any ground rules: that the inter-agency bitching* of McChrystal’s staff was on-the-record. Frankly, I find that hard to believe as well.
Her very good work (CBS admitted they’ve reported much less from Afghanistan while she’s been pregnant) is now a lot more difficult because of Hastings,
Even now I’d bet there’s a directive from the Whitehouse or the Office of the Secretary of Defense on how to say absolutely nothing to reporters and to not fraternise with them and to bore the reporters to death with powerpoint slides vetted by at least five colonel-grade or above desk jockeys in the Pentagon. All over a juicy scoop which ended McChrystal’s career but which makes no difference to our policy or strategy.
* Is anyone surprised at inter-agency bitching between different bits of the Federal Government, really?
geg6
@ricky:
You, sir, are a fucking troll mother fucker. Real mature of you to insult my dead mother. What a man!
Laertes
@Corner Stone:
Forget it, man. They can’t hear you. Some idiot upthread made a sexist remark about Lara Logan, and so now, to her defenders, that’s the entire case against her. You’re talking to a wall.
celticdragonchick
@Downpuppy:
What does the NATO casualty rate have to do with whether we are winning or losing in this instance?
We are losing because we are not able to maintain Afghan governmental sovereignty over vast areas of the country. Losing 100 NATO soldiers is a pretty big damned deal for the families and friends involved, but has nothing really to do with our inability to make the kleptocratic Karzai anything other than the Mayor of Kabul.
GregB
I should have said:
Lara Logan has obviously “become” a hack…..
But I still stand by my previous request to produce any actual news that Lara Logan broke as a reporter.
Zeke
I mostly agree with Taibbi, but can we hold off on giving this freaking RS reporter a Pulitzer for reporting, essentially, bar talk?
It’s newsworthy, yes. It’s not a triumph of journalism. It’s just guys running their mouthparts. Nothing is going to change in Afghanistan as a result. I’m not more informed about the war. I just know that McChrystal had a whole cult of personality thing going on, and it got him fired.
gypsy howell
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
If you think what the military is doing is abhorrent (murdering civilians, bombing wedding parties, invading and occupying countries) then why would you not bash them? I read Hastings article and part of what disgusted me was hearing psychopathic assholes bragging about wanting to “get their gun on.” There is one “troop” I will never support. I don’t support pretty much anything we’re doing over there, and I don’t really care who or why someone is doing it. I give a bit of a pass to guys who were drafted in Vietnam. THOSE guys didn’t have a choice. In today’s all volunteer military, they’ve made their choice, and I don’t like what they’re doing. So I’m not supporting it.
But like I said above, I have a hard time parsing this “abhor the military/ honor the soldier” idea. YMMV.
Keith G
@celticdragonchick:
This
From someone who earlier typed this:
Awesome.
celticdragonchick
@geg6:
As Comrade Sock Puppet points out, Ms Logan is likely to get nothing but stenography work from now on in Afghanistan since nobody will speak to reporters about anything of consequence after this. You can bet your ass that orders have already gone out in CENTCOM reinforcing contact with media policies.
ricky
@geg6:
I did not insult your mother. I repeated your comment about who she spent her time with. Are you insecure for a reason?
Jim C
@Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan:
That’s nice, but it doesn’t address my question. How and where did she serve her country?
Previously:
Logan asked. “I mean, Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has.”
Criticizing his reporting is one thing. This isn’t it.
gypsy howell
@Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan:
As I recall, Logan criticized Hastings for not “serving his country” like McChrystal did — ie, serving in the military — by which she parrots the standard bullshit idea that the only way of ‘serving your country” is by joining the military. Which of course she hasn’t either.
Keith G
@calling all toasters: You disagree so you call him scum?
Put forward a point. Don’t call names.
Laertes
@Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan:
And that’s all it takes, I suppose. Forget who’s right and who’s wrong, or who’s been co-opted by the access trade and who still understands what a journalist’s role ought to be.
Much simpler to work out who you like better, by whatever criterion happens to produce the preferable result, and then base any further judgments on that.
Corner Stone
@Keith G: Damn! Pulled on the crankypants today eh?
Buenos dias neighbor!
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@gypsy howell:
You are an ass. Most of the people making the snide comments with the McCrystal interview were civilian aids. The decisions you are so angry about are made by civilian leadership. The cozy industrial ties are between politicians and civilian owned industries. You can bet those convenient mineral press releases were made by civilians and trumpeted by right-wing civilians who only like to pretend to be macho soldiers by proxy (as they would never risk their own lives for their beliefs).
Now I’m not saying that brass don’t sometimes have opinions that you don’t like or that they don’t try to push their perspective. I am just reiterating that THEY aren’t the ones making the final decisions.
gypsy howell
On second thought, maybe in Logan’s mind she HAS joined the military. Hence she feels she can criticize Hastings for not doing the same.
Doesn’t say much for objective reporting though.
Paul in KY
@tomjones: I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone refer to Mr. Tiabbi as ‘unctuous’. The other epithets, yes I’ve heard them alot. But ‘unctuous’ (to me) doesn’t seem to fit his modus operendi.
Xboxershorts
@celticdragonchick:
As a veteran who’s seen service in war zones, I’m backing the Gypsy. Because he’s right. And I honestly believe you owe the Gypsy an apology. (Although I doubt one would be forthcoming)
Our military does not serve our nation’s interests, it serves our nations elite ruling class’ interests.
There’s a huge difference.
Laertes
For the record, the whole thing makes me sad. From what I’ve read, McChrystal seems like a decent fellow, and a good guy to have running the war there.
I’d never heard of Hastings. I sometimes like Taibbi but often find him tiresome. I know and admire Logan’s work.
I don’t know much about the personal lives of any of these people, and I don’t much care to.
I don’t think McChrystal behaved carelessly, and I don’t think this was some kind of 11D-chess plan to get away from a sinking ship. The much simpler explanation, and it’s borne out by the MSM’s reaction to this whole flap, is that McChrystal and his people had every reason to expect that their extremely damaging statements wouldn’t be reported, on the record or off, because they’d long been behaving this way in front of alleged reporters without consequence.
They’re so used to being around only tame dogs that it doesn’t even occur to them that one might bite.
Allan
So Lara Logan’s extensive time in country now counts as military service by proxy, and any criticism of her means you want the terrorists to win. Got it.
Corner Stone
@Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan: I enjoy your comments because I always imagine your handle is “Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Stan”.
And then I can contemplate who the Great Stan may be. Is he a magician? Circus tumbler? Wine sommelier?
And why the Great Stan would need a communist leaning sock puppet. Is it by choice? Are you an unrequited stalker of the Great Stan?
I think these are the things that need to be thought about.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@gypsy howell:
Troops will commit atrocities. You put people in extremely stressful, life threatening situations and it will bring out the worst in some. You set firm penalties to limit that as much as possible, but if you go to war it is going to happen. That is why we ALL as civilians who elect our government have to make absolutely sure that we don’t go to war unless we have no other reasonable choice. Then we have to make sure it is as short as possible. That is why we should all be making every effort to tar, feather, and humiliate the Bill Kristols of the world.
celticdragonchick
@gypsy howell:
People who have a job description of blowing things up and killing the enemies of the country may, unsurprisingly, want to actually do their job.
I was not all happy with the footage from Baghdad where the Apache gunship pilot was begging a badly injured man (a reporter, it turns out) to pick up a weapon so he can pull the trigger again and finish him off. I thought the pilot was getting trigger happy. ( full disclosure: I am an ex helicopter crewchief and door gunner)
All the same, the men and women on the battlefield are well trained to do their job, and they are highly motivated to do it by the very nature of the adversary. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are not winning any prizes for peace loving humanitarianism. Ergo, you are going to hear some rough talk from grunts who are ready to “get their gun on”.
Most soldiers certainly do not want to kill civilians or “murder” wedding parties. If you want examples of wholesale and indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, you can look up the Mongol invasions, the Japanese occupation of China (see Nanking) or Air Marshall “Bomber” Harris of the RAF and the mass bombing of German cities.
Not in the same league or even the same game. We try to limit civilian deaths, and we actually pay recompense when it does happen. Whatever your badly distorted notions of modern warfighting are, you need some historical perspective.
celticdragonchick
@Xboxershorts:
You are certainly correct on that, if nothing else.
Keith G
@calling all toasters:
You make it some so innocent and therefore unfair.
Her sex life got in the new because she was fucking (and got preggers by) a married civil servant whose cheated on wifey back home went very public with her displeasure.
Shit happens.
gypsy howell
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Oh, don’t misunderstand me. I’m disgusted with the military from top to bottom (really, the whole civilian-military complex that drives this insanity) — those issuing the orders and those who choose be part of carrying them out. From the immoral greed-soaked defense contractor, to the military brass who sees endless wars and mass casualties as a career path, to the shaved head dude who just wants to “get his gun on” with some poor brown-skinned civilian. No worries — no one’s getting a pass from me!
over_educated
Logan did some damn fine reporting in Afghanistan. However her statements regarding reporting are risible and she desrves most of the scorn Tabbibi heaped upon her.
These two statements are not mutually exclusive.
The military protects and serves the citizens of the United States. In past and recent history the military has been used to further purposes of civilian leadership and their corporate sponsors that may not have been in the best interests of the citizens of the United States.
These two statements are also not mutually exclusive.
Michael57
Reporters today are the pits–too many of them are cowards, too many of them are careerists, in the bag for their subjects. The Rolling Stone crew has it right. Don’t believe me, believe David Halberstam, as quoted by Glenn Greenwald:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2007/04/24/halberstam_press
I wish we had guys like Halberstam around today.
Culture of Truth
I like all three of them, and it shouldn’t be about who’s better, Logan or Hastings. I must say I respect Logan a little less for making it so.
Paul in KY
@gypsy howell: Gypsy, the distinction is that the people in power give the ‘military’ its mission (good or bad) and it is the E-whatevers who have to actually carry out said mission (good or bad).
Thus the poor enlisted schlub has to faithfully execute a ‘mission’ that they personally disagree with (or agree with). Bottom line, the ‘carrier-outers’ (to coin a word) have no say in what they are being told to carry out.
Hopefully, this has been helpful to you.
Hugin & Munin
CDC: Curtis LeMay and the firebombing of Tokyo. ‘We’ don’t try to minimize fuck-all.
Capn America
I know this is a bit classless, but I really wish the next time Logan makes a comment like that someone replies with “well, you did grow up in Apartheid South Africa, so your understanding of freedom is a bit skewed.”
Or “Lara, the only way you’ve served your country is by fucking a married contractor.”
But yeah, those would be pretty classless.
gypsy howell
@celticdragonchick:
I’m sure they are very well trained — we certainly spend billions making sure of that — and I’m sure they love their jobs. Good for them. They chose it.
What are we doing there again?
Allan
@Keith G: You noticed that tortured syntax too?
BP’s offshore drilling operations got in the news recently, also too. But it would be irresponsible, nay scummy, of me to bring that up in a discussion of whether new offshore deep drilling should be permitted.
Culture of Truth
So is Logan taking the position that she would not have reported what Hastings reported? Could avoiding uncomfortable truths about our leaders and Afghanistan be one reason why it is now America’s longest war?
calling all toasters
@Keith G: Well, then, I guess we’ve shown she’s a bad reporter or something. Really, you and Allan have an unhealthy obsession with her sex life. I guess you two think you’re making some larger point, and not just being prurient. What that larger point may be is entirely unclear.
calling all toasters
@Allan: Oh, good– I see you’ve found you’re misogynist brother.
celticdragonchick
@gypsy howell:
Ask the President. We sent him there. He sets military policy.
sukabi
@barneyG2000: that’s not the problem, the problem is that the profession as a whole didn’t stand up to those conditions… they just accepted obediently and without question what the conditions would be and have been happily posting press releases ever since… part of the problem stems from the fact that their corporate bosses are more interested in their bottom line, and the other part of the problem is that the “journalists” have no interest in actually being a journalist, they are happy being stenographers and collecting their checks in exchange for rubbing elbows with their powerful celebrity hosts.
For the most part it’s not an access problem, it’s a personality problem.
Keith G
@Corner Stone:
Unfair. You wake up in overdrive. I have to warm up.
gypsy howell
@Paul in KY:
Are you saying they thought they were joining the Peace Corps?
celticdragonchick
@Hugin & Munin:
That too.
A very good book on the subject is Among The Dead Cities by A.C. Grayling.
Xboxershorts
@celticdragonchick:
I will be correct on this, you had little reason to render insult towards me, yet you did anyways, which, to me, indicates weakness and arrogance.
I served my country, willingly. Where’s the respect? Is it only reserved for flag waving followers of your point of view?
Someday, you will awaken to the effects which your own hubris has had in your life. I pray it happens sooner rather than later.
Name calling and insults should have been left behind in the school yard.
sukabi
@over_educated: her last statements about Hastings make me wonder what it was SHE was leaving out of her Afghanistan reporting so as not to offend her military minders and to maintain her access to them…
Downpuppy
@celticdragonchick: The NATO casualty rate is one of the more objective measures of how much the Aghans hate us.
In the early years there, Americans could move about reasonably freely. There seemed to be hope.
Look at the stats
Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total
2001 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 5 4 12
2002 10 12 14 10 1 3 0 3 1 6 1 8 69
2003 4 7 12 2 2 7 2 4 2 6 8 1 57
2004 11 2 3 3 9 5 2 4 4 8 7 2 60
2005 2 3 6 19 4 29 2 33 12 10 7 4 131
2006 1 17 13 5 17 22 19 29 38 17 9 4 191
2007 2 18 10 20 25 24 29 34 24 15 22 9 232
2008 14 7 20 14 23 46 30 46 37 19 12 27 295
2009 25 25 28 14 27 38 76 77 70 74 32 35 521
2010 43 53 39 34 51 100 0 0 0 0 0 0 320
What’s the opposite of pacify?
Keith G
@Corner Stone: You win. I am going home. Oh.
Paris
@Culture of Truth: “So is Logan taking the position that she would not have reported what Hastings reported?”
1) Exactly. She basically said “you weren’t supposed to talk about that”
2) Why was McCrystal’s staff so comfortable with a reporter? Because they have been in the past and the reporters like Ms. Logan never reported their behavior.
thomas
@gypsy howell:
as someone who ‘served our country’ a long time ago it was clear to me that the military brass, and I was pretty close to them in a Corps Headquarters company, were primarily interested in serving their careers.
Maybe things have changed?
Et Tu Brutus?
@gypsy howell: At the risk of further alienating myself from all responsible BJ commentators by proving that I am indeed an unhinged conspiracy theorist, IMO, the true horror that we have unleashed on the world lies not in our military mis-adventurism, but in the wholesale exportation of our lifestyle/ cultural paradigm. Not our fault that people naturally want to live like us, just as it really isn’t a parent’s fault that their kids want to sit around all day slurping corn syrup and playing video games.
Paul in KY
@gypsy howell: ha, ha! You tried to make a funny. No, I’m illustrating how one seperates the ‘orderers’ from ‘the ordered’.
celticdragonchick
@Xboxershorts:
I don’t believe I went to any great length to insult you, unless indicating that I think you are wrong is an insult.
I can be arrogant at times, I confess. I have little patience for people I perceive as foolish, willfully ignorant or malicious.
Keith G
@Allan: But in Logan’s case in was on shore drilling.
celticdragonchick
@Downpuppy:
Body count metrics have been badly suspect since Westmoreland and “The light at the end of the tunnel”.
That goes for either side. I tend to defer to Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama for these kinds of discussions, truth be told, since it really does become a matter of individual perception at some point as to whether and what statistics to use and how much weight they should be given.
celticdragonchick
@Et Tu Brutus?:
I’m looking forward to your anthropology research paper on that subject.
gypsy howell
@celticdragonchick:
I have. Shockingly, he didn’t respond to my letter.
Waynski
This thread makes my eyes rain…. off to the pub.
Et Tu Brutus?
@celticdragonchick: I’ll make sure you get a draft copy; you can proof it for political correctness ( wouldn’t want to lose out on a follow-up research grant by offending the wrong folks ;>).
Allan
@calling all toasters: I see you’ve attempted to shift from calling us generic names to calling us names that you think will resonate better with the BJ readership. Still no content in your critique, though.
Keith G
@calling all toasters: To the contrary. I have found value in her early reporting. Less so recently. My points are 1) She makes mistakes in judgment – her Hastings quote being the latest, and 2) She is a celebrity who comoditizes her sex appeal, so her “escapades” are a legit target.
celticdragonchick
@Et Tu Brutus?:
I wouldn’t presume. That is what peer review is for.
Corner Stone
@Downpuppy: While I am personally horrified by the deaths, I do not believe they are a de facto statistic to prove anything beyond how many people are in fact dead.
If you take the Anbar Awakening period as a brief example, it’s possible less of our men and women may have died during any certain timeframe. Possibly because we were more well regarded and respected for our efforts there, or possibly because we stayed in the Green Zone and sortied out into the field less. So taken by themselves I’m not going to use them as a one stop shop for an argument.
I will say however, that after 9 years in Afghanistan, the fact that the opposing force has the ability to field men and arms in a significant enough number to make June the deadliest month of the war seems to speak for itself.
And certainly, the progression from 2006 to 2010 should give anyone pause if they care to contemplate what that potentially means.
I’m not the Godfather of COIN, but ISTM that if after 9 years we haven’t sufficiently exhausted their supply of material to make war against us, and either captured or killed enough of the hierarchy that plans the opposition to us, then we clearly are not focusing on the right things or applying the correct resources.
Downpuppy
@celticdragonchick:
If whether Afghanistan is getting more hostile & violent is an open question, then so is Global Warming & whether Babe Ruth was a better hitter than Duane Kuiper.
Math ain’t that hard.
celticdragonchick
@Keith G:
WTF??
Any pictures of her in a Sarah Palin tit zipper jacket and Naughty Monkey pumps while reporting?
Maybe it’s just that she is an attractive woman doing a traditionally male job…because the ‘sex appeal’ trope and ‘she is sucking somebody’s cock’ comes up every fucking time any half-way pretty woman gets uppity in a male workplace.
russell
crap, am I gonna have to start buying Rolling Stone again?
celticdragonchick
@Downpuppy:
The increased casualty rate is also readily explainable (and also predicted some time ago) by a greatly increased operational tempo (OPTEMPO) where NATO forces are aggressively seeking out and engaging the Taliban.
The statistics are not indicative of how or why the casualties occurred, and you are weighting them with your own preconceptions. That is dangerous.
Hugin & Munin
CDC: You may have read Mr. Grayling’s fine work, but it is clear that you did not understand it. It is not credible to argue that we strive to limit civilian casualties while at the same time we embrace Air Power doctrine.
maus
@celticdragonchick:
What a simplistic view.
Will
I agree with the whole piece, with the exception of this part:
I would offer that these figures VERY MUCH need the media’s help. Just look at what just happened to McChrystal, because he did not have the “help” of the reporter covering him. Look at what happened to Rand Paul and Sarah Palin, when they gave just devastating interviews to Rachel Maddow and Katie Couric, respectively. Campaigns and the careers of major public figures can rise and fall on their ability to manage the press. It could be argued that among other things, a major reason why Barack Obama is president is his successful management of the media in 2008.
I’m not saying journalists SHOULD provide that help. Quite the contrary. I’m just saying that public figures certainly feel that a complacent, helpful, even loyal media is a necessary component of good p.r., and work aggressively to develop and maintain such a relationship. To believe otherwise kind of misses the point of why the McChrystal thing was such a big deal.
Joel
@celticdragonchick: I think this is absolutely true, and is also the reason why it’s valuable to have war reporters both in and outside the purview of the military.
celticdragonchick
@Hugin & Munin:
Are you suggesting that we are still engaging in unrestricted carpet bombing of cities?
How are you defining “Air Power Doctrine”, and how do you support your allegation that we do not try to limit civilian casualties (which is a prime concern of the COIN methodology we are currently employing in Afghanistan…hence the griping about greatly restricted rules of engagement in the Rolling Stone story!)?
You need to pay a bit more attention to the current events, methinks.
celticdragonchick
@maus:
I’m sorry. I forgot to add the Bildebergers, Rothschilds and the Evil Cabal of Weaponz and Gunz Manufacturers.
LongHairedWeirdo
Nod. The worst thing is, editors and publishers let them get away with it. And it’s a an industrywide thing – unless *every* editor, and every publisher, refuses to let them get away with it, someone will get exclusives and other editors and publishers will drool over them, and decide to compromise, and soon, there’s no journalistic responsibility left.
This is the free market at work. We’re supposed to worship it rather than recognize that some things shouldn’t be run like a business, to maximize profit and minimize costs.
Keith G
@celticdragonchick: You silly.
Like any reasonabnly with person, she tends to cover *her* beat in a flack jacket and helmet.
Her PR stills and appearances are quite a different matter.
Sorry, but fuck that. No victimhood on her part. As I mentioned above, she has a history now and as a celebrity she gets cut no slack. Especially when she “sells” it.
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/M5gX599v4hl/33rd+Annual+Gracie+Allen+Awards/HquziwE1Haw/Lara+Logan
sukabi
@Will:
that is so wrong… if a person is in a job where they need the media’s help to prop them up, then they AREN’T QUALIFIED to be in the position they are in. It is THEIR JOB to be educated on the subjects they are speaking on and to KNOW what they are doing. IT IS NOT THE JOB OF THE MEDIA TO COVER THEIR ASSES AND HELP THEM INTO ANOTHER POSITION THEY AREN’T QUALIFIED FOR.
Hugin & Munin
CDC: BOC, for we no longer rely on air superiority and the use of air-dropped muntions as a way of limiting our use of ground troops in military engagements.
And COIN is a pipe-dream.
Stick with rocks.
Et Tu Brutus?
@celticdragonchick: Oy Vay, something we actually agree on.
Doctor Science
Sister Machine Gun:
Hear, hear! *clinks glass*
I would love to agree with your other points, but three things are stopping me:
1. The relationship between civilian contractor/warmongers and the military is closer than you admit. Working for the military-industrial complex is a common and very lucrative second career for officers who’ve done their 20 years, and there are strong ties of friendship, mutual understanding, and political agreement between the “military” and “industrial” parts of the arrangement. It’s not a one-way street, especially for officers.
2. People in the military, their families, and the regions where they are concentrated have been strikingly pro-war, pro-torture, anti-habeus corpus, and Republican. Statistically, “supporting the troops” means supporting current US military policy: most people, and most troops, do not make a distinction between “supporting the troops” and basically supporting everything Cheney did.
3. We agree that the Constitution specifies that the military must be subordinated to the civilian powers. There is, AFAIK, one exception: military leaders can and are required to refuse to commit war crimes.
American flag officers did not. In my opinion, invading Iraq was a war crime; the invasion was certainly so ill-conceived and ill-planned as to violate the “Probability of success” criterion for a just war: “Arms may not be used in a futile cause or in a case where disproportionate measures are required to achieve success.” And then there’s the hosing of the Geneva Convention and the use of torture.
I hold flag officers as a class, and the Joint Chiefs in particular, seriously culpable for the wars, the way they’ve been prosecuted and the fact that they are apparently without end. They were not “just following orders”, nor should that be a defense.
The fact that militaristic, imperialist, exceptionalist US policies are generally supported by troops and their families and friends also makes it very hard for me to say “don’t blame the troops” — even though I want to.
El Cid
@Hugin & Munin: COIN is either a collection of trivially and obviously true things or a real strategy. It’s not the latter.
Keith G
@Keith G: And this is quite far afield from where I started which was in response to a few who were developing a line of reasoning sounding like, “Logan is the apex of journalism and this guy Hastings is an underhanded nobody who shafted our GIs.”
So I will leave it here.
celticdragonchick
@Keith G:
Ah. Gotcha. At a semi-glamorous awards type event, she needs to show up in a grey skirt suit in order to be a SERIOUS PERSON. Showing any sign of teh boobies at a venue not affiliated with her employer or having anything to do with her actual on screen reporting for CBS means she is still somehow commoditizing her sex appeal.
I understand.
Nudge nudge wink wink say no more, say no more!
Downpuppy
@Corner Stone: Hell, yes.
There are plenty of other measures to consider. By any of them, COIN is a disaster. I just picked one that was fairly objective, & depressingly timely.
Plus, I like to plug ICasualties.org. They do great work.
Emma
over_educated: Thank you!
Keith G
@Doctor Science: Simple, concise, stunning. One of the best expressions I have read on that topic.
celticdragonchick
@Hugin & Munin:
And that translates into disregard for civilian casualties…how?
And on my world, the sun is a lovely shade of cyan blue. Do go on…
I’ll consider that under advisement.
Keith G
@celticdragonchick: Its an unfair world.
Will
@sukabi:
Like I said, I am not certainly not saying that is the way things SHOULD be. Just that it happens to be the way they are.
Allan
@celticdragonchick:
And sometimes it comes up because it’s true *cough* Sally Quinn *cough*.
Anyway, I would take you more seriously if you valued yourself as a person enough not to label yourself with depersonalizing slurs like “chick.”
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Doctor Science:
1. It isn’t suprising that there are strong ties, but it IS the civilians who empower the industries and make the policy decisions.
2. This is really misleading. The military and military families are people, and therefore a lot more diverse than you or the pundits (on either side) would like to admit. I have family in the military. I can tell you what they thought of Rumsfield and Cheney, and it isn’t fit to print.
3. In hindsight, I would agree that invading Iraq was a war crime. At the time of the invasions, Bush, Cheney, Wolfy, Kristol, the evil Kagan family, et al, had much of the public convinced that this was a war of necessity. They USED the military. They USED people, who had signed up to defend this country after we were attacked on 9/11, to fight an unnecessary war for kicks. They destroyed military families. They put people I care about at risk and certainly gave one of them PTSD.
Frankly, there were retired officers who were saying this was a bad idea. There were generals who were kicked out for honestly stating the likely costs. Just because you get PO’d at the flag waving jerks, who USE the troops to look patriotic when any cursory glance at their actual policies toward the soldiers and veterans could tell you otherwise, DON’T take it out on our military.
Hugin & Munin
CDC: Ask the wedding parties.
celticdragonchick
@Allan:
Well, that was certainly original.
Have fun, everybody. I’m off for the afternoon.
nate
Longtime reader, first time caller. I just want to say this sexism bullshit on Logan is unworthy of balloon juice commenters. It’s not her fault she’s so attractive, and this obsessing over her dresses and personal life shit is loathsome.
Go take care of it in the privacy of your own bathroom, guys, honestly.
That being said, I’m pretty much astonished to find so many people defending Logan’s comments. It seems pro-military means they ought to be able to act without the burden of the public knowing what the fuck they’re doing.
tomjones
@Paul in KY: I think this definition fits:
tim
@gypsy howell:
A THOUSAND TIMES A THOUSAND TIMES, YES.
stuckinred
@tim: Yea, how long ago was it they went to Haiti?
tim
@celticdragonchick:
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Allan:
Concern trolling on sexism, after making a sexist comment. Cute. Bet you think you are real enlightened.
tim
@gypsy howell:
OMG, YES, YES AGAIN. A THOUSAND MILLION TIMES YES.
Redshirt
I see some cannot escape the relentless brainwashing we’ve all endured over the past 30 or so years: SUPPORT THE TROOPS. No matter what!
That also counts for Cops, but not anyone else, of course.
Tom
Journalists question the use of these quotes because A) there are unwritten agreements between reporters and people being interviewed. B) The reason for the unwritten agreements is to get information in the future to convey to readers, NOT to serve those being reported on.
Think Rolling Stone will get ANYTHING from the military in the near or distant future?
Think the military is going to be a hell of a lot more tight-lipped with ANY reporter in the at least near future?
The reporter wasn’t covering a beat, so he doesn’t have to worry about pissing his sources off, but the report did, I think, make it harder for journalists to get information in the short term, especially from the military.
The question is, was it worth it? Was this just military leaders letting off steam while drinking Bud Light? Did similar venting sessions happen behind closed doors under Bush? Is this a common occurrence that just seems shocking because we don’t see it everyday?
tim
@gypsy howell:
Good god, you rock today, gypsy howell.
Never mind the tiny general and the chick; they heap insults and name calling on anyone who veers from BJ sychophant-approved rhetoric here. It’s all they’ve got.
joypog
@over_educated:
ding! The inability of people on the internets to hold several competing thoughts in their head is often breathtaking.
I have to say that whatever good reporting she may have done, its gonna be hard to take her seriously from this point onward…(not that I’ve taken much of anything I see on the MSM too seriously)
Paul in KY
@tomjones: I’m not sure that the definition you excerpted is the most common usage now. I would say being ‘unctuous’ is to be a suck up or a smarmy/fawningly polite suck up (I guess that was what I was thinking).
Do agree that the definition you posted is valid. I guess if that was what you were thinking, then roll with the ‘unctuous’!
Allan
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Someone takes herself WAAAAY too seriously in here.
Paul in KY
@Tom: They were drinking Bud Light Lime, so yes burn em bad ;-)
Tom
@Geg
My brother is currently a journalist and he makes this “bullshit” argument.
It’s not about sucking up to your sources, but any good journalist knows that you need your sources to trust you. This Rolling Stone reporter took quotes that would normally be understood as off the record and printed them.
Now, I’m not saying that is necessarily a bad thing. But it’s not necessarily a good thing either. As I said before, running these quotes will have ramifications, and not just for him and not just for Rolling Stone. It will be harder to get information as a result of them.
Question is, was it worth it? The more I think about it, the more I see this as a case of “gotcha” journalism. The guys had their guard down and were bitching about their bosses. How much was real criticism and how much was just venting? Who knows, but I bet similar stuff happens under every administration behind closed doors.
Allowing “off the record” conversation is not “sucking up” or “working for” your sources. It’s about building a trust so that you can best get information in the future.
Allan
@celticdragonchick: How can you have fun when somewhere in the world a woman is being denigrated for her appearance?
/Peter Daou
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Allan:
“I’m not sexist! I was just playing around! I’m enlightened! Really!”
sukabi
@Tom: The thing is Tom that what the McChrystal did was a direct violation of the Military Code of Conduct, and if he and his support staff were saying shit like that in front of a journalist, then they were most likely also disparaging Obama, Biden and the other civilians IN FRONT OF THE TROOPS, which undermines the entire chain of command and their mission.
It also says more about McChrystal’s judgment than it says about how reporters should conduct themselves. And your position about how a reporter should suck up to get a story is a perfect example of how absolutely BROKEN and compromised that profession has become.
Paul in KY
@Tom: Do you think Mr. Hastings published comments that had been previously understood (by him & the people he quoted) to be ‘off the record’ or do you think Mr. Hastings should have self-censored (for lack of a better word) the inflammatory comments (some made when they were iced to the max)?
Allan
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Again, you confuse me with someone who gives a fuck of your opinion of me.
Mark S.
Apologies if someone has already mentioned this:
That is fucked up. Diplomacy is a lot cheaper than war, in both lives and money, but we put roughly the same resources into making our wars look good as we do trying to prevent the damn things in the first place. But I guess there aren’t as many billion dollar contracts to be had from the State Department.
Keith G
@Tom:
Dude, the agreement for *that* interview was that everything was on the record. This was not an ambush. This was not a hidden mic trick. This was not Eye-Witness News pulling one over some dumb-ass county sheriff. This was one of our most accomplished generals, a covert opps wunderkind, spending time with a Rolling Stones reporter. Egos were not checked at the door.
edited out a mis-read
Tom
@Paul in KY
I don’t know for sure, but the sense that I got was they weren’t officially off the record, but it’s obvious that the commandeers didn’t intend what they were saying to get out to the public.
For beat reporters, this kind of thing happens all the time. You go on the record with your sources, but you may hang around them for a while afterwords in a relaxed setting. If a source, with his guard down, said something juicy to someone else in front of the reporter and the reporter quoted the source on it without asking the source, well, goodbye source.
That’s what journalists are reacting to. This guy isn’t a beat reporter, so he doesn’t care. But for people who put a lot of effort into building trust among their sources so they can get information, this sort of thing is something they wouldn’t do.
So, to answer your question, Hastings would have had to self-censor himself. Should he have? Honestly, I don’t know. It’s a moot point, but I think a lot depends on how important or extraordinary you think these comments were.
Tom
@Keith G
Um, no. I don’t know how you came to think I made that claim. I’ve spoken to my brother about this article and was essentially relaying his thoughts on it. I also have a degree in journalism, though I don’t work as one.
geg6
@Tom:
You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Hastings never told them the train ride was off the record and they never asked for it to be. Therefore, anyone who expected anything to kept under cover is an idiot. And any reporter who would keep it under cover is no reporter worth reading or listening to.
As for Rolling Stone never getting another story because of this, you again don’t know anything about the symbiotic relationship between the press, the military, and politicians. Rolling Stone will get another story the minute someone in power decides they want to be on the cover of the Rolling Stone. As they have since, what, 1967. Even when Hunter Thompson was trashing every politician and military leader in America and calling them worse names than any used by Limbaugh or Beck today, Rolling Stone still managed and manages to get the story.
And I’d like to ask you to ask your brother why the only sources he and people like Lara Logan consider sources are those at the top who must be cultivated and flattered and never criticized in public? Why was my mother able to get stories and win prizes in journalism without ever once doing that? Why did she disdain talking to them until she already had the facts? If she needed them for the facts, how was she able to get those facts if she didn’t talk to them until she was almost done with her stories? Gee, is it possible that there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of other people who probably have more hands-on and detailed knowledge about most things a reporter might be investigating than mayors or generals or senators or CEOs and who don’t need to be fluffed by a wannabe media personality in order to tell the truth or just simply the facts as they are?
Gawd, no wonder the American media is such a disastrous and embarrassing failure. None of them (well, a very teeny tiny minority may) have any idea what journalism is, how to practice it, or what it’s purpose is.
Paul in KY
@Tom: Thank you for your reply. I will say that beat reporters can put ‘a lot of effort into building trust among their sources’ only to later find out that they showed their source that they could be trusted to unquestionly regurgitate the BS the source was feeding them.
Medicine Man
I don’t have much to add on topic. It doesn’t seem like a bad thing to me that various reporters have varying opinions on what kind of reporting is a-ok and what isn’t. As has been pointed out, Lara Logan has her schtick and Matt Taibbi has his. Unsurprisingly, they both view things from their own vantage-biases intact.
I’m not familiar with Logan’s work but I have read some of Taibbi’s stuff (whom is a prick, for the record). He has done some good writing on the bailouts and various Wall Street ponzi schemes. He has also written up some good stuff on how media narratives are cultivated and on the behavior of the press corps during election times. I tend to give him some credit when he talks about media culture and there may be a kernel of truth to his observations about Logan’s biases.
What doesn’t naturally follow is that Logan’s entire body of work is worthless; or that Logan is a clubbish geek who wants to keep her secret decoder ring; or that Logan’s opinion is now suspect forevermore. That is all bloggy, monkey-cage crazytalk.
As for McChrystal? Most of the military folks who’s writing I follow think he screwed up and had to go. No question.
Tom
People like my brother? God, you’re an idiot. I’ve tried to engage in a civil debate here — I even said I can see both sides of the argument — but you seem more interested in going on about how your mommy is a real journalist and won awards while projecting qualities on to my brother that you want him to have so you can get on your high horse.
Have fun jerking yourself off.
ricky
I, for one, am greatful to Allan. The conduct of a single unmarried person in their private sex life is fundamental to the interpretation of how they must have conducted themselves in their professional life.
If, for example, we learn a female auto mechanic was having sex with a shop steward from the auto dealership down the street and a married parts wholesaler in the metropolitan area, we can assume she will do Hummers for any rich customer who wheels into the driveway.
Except, of course for those of us who criticize her for it. Which is why we have the right to be judgemental. And angry. And deny it is because their is something wrong with our drive shaft.
Tom
OK, you go ahead and try and be a beat reporter by routinely burning your sources. Good luck with that.
I’d like to say for the record that showing some restraint when dealing with sources doesn’t mean you’re just regurgitating what they say or using them as your ONLY source. Of course there are other ways to get information, and beat reporters do that. It’s just wise and in the long run beneficial to getting information to not burn your sources. It’s not a sucking up thing, it’s a practical thing.
Paul in KY
@Tom: I’m not saying that what I mentioned in my previous post is what happens all the time. However, I think a canny beat reporter always has to be on the guard for that. Especially when interviewing people whose job description includes PR and/or press management.
Certainly in the runup to the Iraq fiasco, that happened time & time again (or the beat reporter had their own agenda & was a willing participant).
Allan
@geg6: Just to illustrate: A mayor in my area posted an update about a contentious issue to his Facebook page (!), and it drew a sharply critical comment from someone I didn’t know to be the former mayor of another nearby town. Many comments ensued, including mine taking mayor #2 to task for what she wrote, and her offense in turn at my bluntness (!).
Within minutes I had been privately contacted by two residents of Mayor #2’s town who were eager to share dirt on what a lousy mayor she was, in detail. And I’m just another schmuck on the internet, not even someone who could do anything especially damaging with the info.
THAT’S HOW READY people are to throw politicians and leaders they dislike under the bus.
Reporters work this flow, separate wheat from chaff, and publish what they learn.
Do I have that about right?
sukabi
@Tom: there are “sources” and there are “sources”…
in the case of McChrystal, he wasn’t a “source” he was the TOPIC. There may have been a “source” that tipped off Hastings that McChrystal was an out of control boozer, or was busy dissing the administration, but it’s much more likely that McChrystal’s own previous behavior was the “source” (ie, making speeches that directly challenge the administration). McChrystal became the story BECAUSE of his and his staff’s behavior with Hastings, not because Hastings ambushed them.
And you can’t be “burned” by someone else if you set yourself on fire.
Corner Stone
@ricky:
Does that mean she’ll blow him, or fix his overpriced SUV?
Allan
@ricky: You appear to have put a lot of time and energy into that comment. I’m touched that you took the time to make it personal.
Paul in KY
@sukabi: Excellent point!
geg6
@Tom:
You’re the one who said:
I’m just reacting to what you said. You said that your brother uses the same argument to cover up for the powerful that Lara Logan does. So you’re the one disparaging your brother, not me.
I had some questions I’d like you to ask your brother that have to do with the process by which he conducts investigations or in covering his beat. And gave you examples of what my mother did or didn’t do in doing those things. I never said a single derogatory thing about your brother, just asked questions about the Lara Logan school of journalism that you agreed that he practices. I’m just curious as to why my dear, departed mother was able to do her job without covering up for or sucking up to stupid prominent people which, you admit, your brother does. You don’t ever have to use those prominent people in order to do the job of a beat reporter. Ever. There are loads of examples of this, from I.F. Stone with his lonely but heroic exposure of the Johnson lies about the Gulf of Tonkin to Woodstein on their crappy metro beat bringing down a president to Nellie Bly in the insane asylum. You only need the cooperation of those you are covering when you are doing a profile. Otherwise, there are dozens of ways to get the story.
For reporters who think that being a beat reporter means that one should never go head to head with the prominent and powerful people on the beat or that one should never print unflattering stuff about them because covering the beat may become difficult, I say that they were never covering the beat. They were simply writing what their subjects want them to and that is, by any measure, nothing but stenography. Journalism it certainly is not.
Doctor Science
Sister Machine Gun:
1. Saying that it’s always the civilians calling the shots is a bit … too unambiguous. How do you count Erik Prince +hawk — spit+, for instance? Is he military, or civilian?
At the flag officer/procurement level, as Eisenhower said, military and industry (and congressional) leadership bleed into each other, *none* of them get to disavow what they’re all doing.
2. I have active military in my extended family, and of course all the males born before the mid-1950s were vets. I know there’s a lot of diversity, especially in what the Brits call Other Ranks. But since Vietnam the US officer class, in particular, has become heavily politicized and militaristic — and the higher-ups, who *should* be the most knowledgeable and prudent, are the worst.
3. I know people who have PTSD and other wounds, as well. But I can’t blame only Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld’s gang — some of the blame has to go to the Joint Chiefs and the rest of the flag officers, and I have to assume that taint goes down the chain of command, though I’m sure it gets fainter. I’d love it if you could come up with a reason to draw a line, below which it really isn’t the troops’ fault. I’m certainly willing to give enlisteds a pass, and probably Sergeants and Lieutenants, who are *way* down the chain and get pissed on a lot.
But it’s hard not to tar even them with that brush, because discipline, unity, fellow-feeling, and more discipline are what the military is supposed to be all about — especially when they are all volunteers.
Doctor Science
Also, what Andrew Bacevich said. Always. Talk about your heroes …
Lisa
Okay so why is it okay to point and snicker if some guy of note gets himself into hot water – but not if a woman does? It is unfair to say that because she had an affair with a married man, she slept her way to the top (obviously that had NOTHING to do with her career….just some dalliance along the way)…..but really, pointing out that she is an idiot with really bad judgement on both personal and professional levels is about the same as saying Mark Sanford or Elliot Spitzer are idiots with terrible judgement/timing.
I guess my point is: It is not sexist to say “remember that ridiculous scandal with the married guy…” because we would TOTALLY say that if it were some male hack we were discussing. The place where it gets sexist is when you say “Her pussy is what got her to the top.” because that is not true.
A Guest
@Mark S.: source?
ETA: oh, I see, from the Taibbi piece.
geg6
@Allan:
Yes, exactly. Exactly. That is how it is supposed to work. Unfortunately, based on what we can see every day in the msm and in this very thread, that is not how it is as far as today’s media sees it.
Which is why I don’t indulge in the msm much any more. I do my own investigative journalism for my own edification most of the time, especially in my own career field. And, funnily enough, I have learned all kinds of wonderful, interesting, and useful things. And never once have I had to actually talk to, let alone suck up to or cover up for, a U.S. Senator or House Member, the President or his Secretary of Education, the Governor of the Commonwealth of PA, a PA Senator of House Member, the PA Secretary of Education, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, or Graham Spanier in order to find out what I want to know that they don’t, necessarily, want me to.
ricky
@Corner Stone:
Perhaps I should have said “she will fellate the tires and polich the brass for any Harry, Dick, or Rod that pulls into her bay.”
Kered (formerly Derek)
Is celticdragonchick ever not full of shit? Jesus.
dww44
@gypsy howell:
Yes, a thousand times, yes, this:
And, as a result of our inability to do other than worship at the feet of the MI complex, we get a deficit reduction commission privatized out to Pete Peterson and company, going around the country, in town halls and bending, ever so subtley, the opinions of attendees who like their Social Security and Medicare, to admit that entitlement programs ought to be cut and the retirement age increased to 70. Hah! What self respecting multi-national corporation is going to NOT layoff its older workers when, once again, they are “right-sizing’ their organization. I am one of those folks and I retired at 57 after 9-11 in one of those downsizing moments that corporate America has just so loved for the last 30 years.
L
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Maybe a few facts on this escapade are in order.
Hastings and Rolling Stone apparently gave the General and his team the opportunity to comment on the final story before they printed it, and McChrystal and his staff had no problems with it. So Logan is off base calling it a gotcha, or revealing their behind the scenes locker room talk.
And it was just behind the scenes locker room talk of soldiers bellyaching about their superiors, and no more substantive than that, albeit at very high level to where it was newsworthy for that reason alone. Not because it was some incisive scoop on corruption or malfeasance. Soldiers can bitch to their superiors all they want when an order or policy is in the planning stage, but once the decision is made, by, in this case the WH and Obama, they salute and carry out those orders. There is no evidence that I could tell, of the General pro actively undermining that mission decision, other than to bad mouth his superiors with his peers in private, and maybe not take some calls from other US players in the region.
And like I said earlier, bitching and moaning about decisions of superiors and in general is perfectly common in the military. Logan should have stopped with that fact, that the substance wasn’t there, but not that Hastings was doing something on the sly.
Concluding that Logan is wrong about her complaints about RS and Hastings, and making the leap now that her standing as a good war reporter is suspect is nonsense, as is her sex life. She hasn’t pulled many punches in the past when criticism of the government was in order, especially from her time in Iraq. But I doubt she sees the RS article as especially news worthy, other than the fact the general was so loose lipped about his thoughts, in a way it seemed he didn’t care if it was made public and didn’t object to the story being published, which lends itself possibly as a round about expose that the war as it is in Afghan. is fucked and unwinnable.
Obama putting a deadline on it would suggest he has came to the same conclusion, and is now just trying to give the Afghan. government the best situation possible to continue fighting the Taliban when we leave, at least as conducting an active ground war there.
ricky
@Allan: Thanks Allan.
I am happy my comments touched you. We know you like touching yourself. How else can you have fun when somewhere in the world a woman is being denigrated because two men in her life are letting their dicks do their thinking by physically fighting over her. Then smart men like you take that to mean if she is worth fighting for she must therefore be a complete slut.
Midnight Marauder
@Allan:
I’m pretty sure this is exactly how journalism works at every level, or at least, how it’s supposed to work. I mean, I keep hearing people talk about beat reporters “burning their sources,” and I’m wondering why the beat reporters these people know have such fragile, shitty sources? You don’t need to talk to the mayor for a big story on the mayor; you don’t need to talk to the military brass for a big expose on a flawed military strategy; you don’t need to talk to a politician if you’re investigating a story related to their various ethical lapses.
The reason you don’t need to talk to these entities directly is because the information you are seeking out as a reporter exists in a variety of different forms, with a variety of different individuals and entities that can be used as “sources.” You want to investigate a politician? You start talking to the people at the cafe they frequent, or their landscaper, or their kid’s best friend. You can adjust that template as needed for any story you happen to find yourself working on.
It’s similar to someone working on a profile of someone famous. Sure, standard practice is to talk with that person and get some quotes from them, hang around while they do their thing, and then whip out some pristine representation of their luxurious, yet brooding, life. But plenty of reporters know how to put together profiles by just talking to friends of their subject, or going through primary documents, or having conversations with people their subject interacted with during pivotal times throughout their life. The entire point is, journalism has never–and should never–be dependent on the subject of a story also serving as the key source for the story.
That’s the way the system is in large part set up now, and it’s entirely flawed.
jerry 101
This whole thing makes me think that none of these people know (the Village Idiot press) how to do their jobs. At minimum, I think that every reporter on earth should be required to sit down and watch Almost Famous and then be required to pass a basic test.
1. What is the appropriate initial response from the person(s) whom you are assigned to interview/cover?
a. You betcha!
b. Sure, but lets go over some ground rules…
c. The enemy! The one person you don’t talk to is a reporter!
2. When you sit down to do the actual interview, what is the appropriate response from the interviewee?
a. Hey pal, what’s going down!
b. Now, you know that you don’t talk about Fight Club, right?
c. I’m telling secrets to the one guy you don’t tell secrets to.
3. You are interviewing a famous politician. You are a hard-nosed reporter for a major publication. Select the item that best describes how this dynamic should work.
a. You sit down, drink a few beers, shoot the shit, and then send a copy of your story to the politician’s press secretary to edit.
b. You maintain your distance, realizing you are not part of the “in” crowd. You are not cool. The politician doesn’t want to be your buddy. You are honest and unmerciful in your story.
4. Your interviewee gets high, shots from a rooftop that he’s on drugs and, strips down, and says that he’s a Golden God before diving into a pool full of half naked teenage girls. The interviewee is a right-wing family values type.
Do you:
a. Not report this, as it may embarrass the politician and jeopardize your source?
b. Report this as part of your lede?
5. Are you there to party?
a. Yes, I am Hunter S. Thompson.
b. No, Hunter S. Thompson is dead. I am here to work.
Lara Logan, and all the other Village Idiots, would fail that test.
Allan
@ricky: I bookmark Balloon Juice in a folder labelled “Snark.” If you don’t like my humor, try being funnier. I’m bored with you.
Midnight Marauder
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Which means the following comment was also off base:
It was beyond a dumb comment. She had no (obvious) incentive to involve herself in this matter, and not only did she choose to do so, but she jumped in and tried to slander Michael Hastings and his work. Not only that, she outright lied in her attempts to defend the Establishment, particularly its military elements.
Come on, Stuck. This was a far-reaching rot of insubordination and outright disdain for civilian leadership. “Albeit at a very high level”? That entirely contradicts the notion contained in the first sentence. You’re not talking about innocuous “locker room talk” when the general of your mission in Afghanistan is setting an example of hostility to civilian command.
So there’s no evidence other than him engaging in the very behavior that is a direct violation of the Military Code of Conduct in this country? Good to know.
But then there would have been no point for her to be on television in the first place. That’s a large disagreement here. You are affording her noble intentions that are directly betrayed by her own behavior and rhetoric in this situation.
Which is why his command was terminated in the first place. Which is why the article was newsworthy. Which is why Lara Logan is completely off-base in this instance.
Tom
@Geg
Yeah, notice the quotes. Next time I’ll include the a /sarc to make it crystal clear.
And here’s my problem with how are arguing this. You’re making straw man arguments. I never said a good a beat reporter should never go head-to-head with the prominent and powerful nor print anything unflattering about them. If you read my argument carefully, you’ll see that I’m saying a reporter on a beat has to take into consideration the relationship he or she has with their sources when decided to print off-the-record (explicitly stated or implied) comments from them. They have to judge the newsworthiness of such comments and decide if it’s worth burning their source over, not because they are friends with that source or they want to be in their “club,” but as a matter of practicality.
I bet if you show that statement to your mom, she’d agree with it.
My problem with you is that you say stuff like this:
You’re making grand assumptions about people you don’t know and who’s work you (admittedly) don’t know. Stick to the specifics of the argument and don’t start spouting off how my brother “protects people in power” and all this BS.
Like this:
Never said anything derogatory about my brother… come on, pal. You’re making great leaps in the substance of what I’ve said to get to what you want to believe. I have zero patience for people like you, and have already wasted enough time with you, so have a good one.
kc
Can I just say in response to some comments above that Hastings’ RS article wasn’t about some poor grunts bitching and moaning about the brass.
It was about the brass bitching and moaning. Namely, the four star general in charge of our entire Afghanistan operation whining about having to attend a state dinner, and making fun of the VP.
Don’t know about some of y’all, but I consider that to be big news. I had been under the impression that McChrystal was a little more mature than that.
Lara Logan was wrong, especially with that horseshit about Hastings not “serving his country” like McChrystal.
ricky
Midnight Marauder:
sukabi
@Midnight Marauder: I’d just like to ad that McChrystal’s “bitching and moaning” about the civilian chain of command wasn’t a private and isolated instance. He’d been called on the carpet twice before for publicly undermining and trying to back Obama into a corner wrt the ongoing policy in Afghanistan.
Tom
Say you cover city hall for a newspaper and you run into the some aide to the mayor at happy hour. He proceeds to have a few and starts ripping the mayor in front of you. Then you go home and write up a story on his comments and the next morning the front page of your paper declares “Aide calls mayor an ‘asshat.'”
That’s burning a source, and roughly the equivalent to what happened with the Rolling Stone article, granted on a much larger scale. Now, again, I’m not saying Hastings was right or wrong about using these quotes, but the reaction from some journalists to him using them stems from how he got them.
Now, everyone bitches about their bosses, especially after a few beers — i’m sure even those in the military. Yes, it was incredibly dumb for McCrystal and his staff to do so in front of a reporter and he should have been canned for making the mistake of doing so.
But taking a behind-closed-door, alcohol-fueled bitch session and turning into a front-page story is a bit iffy.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I take it you’ve never been in the military. Talking about how full of shit your superiors are in private is not insubordination. It takes an act of his in carrying out the mission or a direct remark out of private. And I said it seems like McCrystal, by not objecting to the story was sanctioning it to be made public. Either that or he is very dumb, which seems unlikely, or has some other personal wish to maybe get the hell out of Afghan. himself to not be blamed for the loss, or something. Who knows.
This was directed specifically at Logan’s lamenting why McChystal was fired by Obama once this become public. Not on her statements about Hasting’s I commented on this: and clarified that upthread.
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Christ almighty, I hardly afforded her anything, but was speculating on her motives, or motives in part. I maintain, in and of itself this is not exactly a giant scoop, other than the fact they ran their mouths with a reporter around, and didn’t object or claim it was off record when given the opportunity before printing it.
And you are assigning her your own set of suspected motives, basically that she is a hack and part of the establishment over this single incident. That is bullshit, from people looking for purity and scalps to take.
Listen, if this causes some of you to hate on Logan for being off base here, and I have agreed she is. Then have at it. I am sick of pitchfork brigades wherever they turn up, that single out a single mistake and turn it into an inquisition that disregards every other mitigating factor.
geg6
@Tom:
You’re the one who said he says exactly what Logan says all the time. Not me.
And I’d love to ask my mom your question (but I know how she’d answer), but she’s dead. If you had read my posts carefully, you’d know that.
Anyway, I already answered as to how my mother would react to your idea (though I’m paraphrasing because you seem to think that off the record is whatever the source says it is and not something that must be explicitly determined by both parties and that violating some unspoken and un-agreed to pact is “burning” a source and is the death of any beat or investigation) in several of my posts on this matter. You often don’t need anything other than some government papers from open sources like campaign finance reports, police reports, or congressional records to do the real job of a reporter. Your least best sources are the human ones.
Joel
With regards to the quoted section in mistermix’s post, Taibbi is absolutely right. Whatever her merits or faults, Logan’s objectivity is clearly compromised by her association with the people that she’s covering and that’s okay, all said, as long as she’s forthright in her disclosure. Of course she couldn’t be, isn’t, and hasn’t been.
This brings to mind Hunter S. Thompson:
Midnight Marauder
@ricky:
A total non sequitur that does nothing to address this issue. We’ve gotten off to a great start here.
The same way reporters have always convinced potential sources that they can be trusted–hard work and effort. No one said it was going to be an easy task. I was once led to believe that ingenuity and perseverance were amongst a journalist’s best tools.
Very serious dialogue happening here. Very serious.
ricky
@Allan:
Bored with me now? Bet you say that to all the girls who turn down a ride in your Corvette.
sukabi
@Tom: that’s bullshit and you know it… Hasting’s encounter with McChrystal wasn’t a one off meeting in a bar where McChrystal and his staff were dissing the boss while drunk… they spent several weeks in and out of each other’s company, with all parties knowing they were ON RECORD.
and even IF your assertion is true, why on earth would you let an out of control General’s drunken behavior pass??? This is the person that’s supposed to be responsible enough to be running a goddamned war. Instead he and his staff are drunk off their asses, talking shit about his boss and everyone else he doesn’t like.
Midnight Marauder
@Tom:
NO, this is not the same or the equivalent to what happened with the Rolling Stone article AT ALL! To begin with, who do you think set up and signed off on Michael Hastings following around McChrystal? Do you really think McChrystal had no hand in this matter? So, fundamentally, your analogy is not comparable.
We aren’t talking about running into some drunken aide of the mayor at happy hour and them popping off at the mouth about how the mayor sucks. We are talking about a general in the United States Army, who was Commander of the International Security Assistance Force and Commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, allowing a reporter from Rolling Stone to come and observe him and his inner circle, who had already been called out on repeated instances for burgeoning disrespect and trying to back the Obama Administration into a corner.
The better example would be if the Mayor invited you to follow them around for an evening, and then let you hang around at happy hour when they were getting smashed, just running off at the mouth willy-nilly about whatever and whoever. It’s an egregious irresponsible and moronic act by itself, let alone they way you handle yourself during the actual interview.
Your second paragraph seems entirely contradictory with the thoughts expressed in your first paragraph. Please explain a bit more how an offense that was “incredibly dumb” and should have led to McChrystal being canned is “a bit iffy” to turn into a front page story. There is an immense disconnect in the logic here.
ricky
So folks, what have we learned from this Rolling Stone article about how things are going in our nine years of military involvement in Afghanistan?
How much debate has Hastings sparked about that? That is what he has said he wanted to do in the interviews I have seen with him.
He failed.
Allan
@ricky: No, it’s just that you’re boring.
Midnight Marauder
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
I don’t think that’s particularly relevant given the issues we are discussing here.
Fine. It’s not insubordination, but it damned sure is contempt under Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
But, again, that’s not what we’re dealing with in this circumstance. You have the Commander of US Forces in Afghanistan showing outright disdain for our supposed allies. You have one of the highest ranking generals in the military openly cultivating an atmosphere of hostility to civilian command. It’s greater than “talking about how full of shit your supervisors are.” You can object to the word insubordination, but the code is rather clear that McChrystal’s actions were contemptuous of civilian command of the military and the punishment was more than appropriate.
I also find it telling that you afford McChrystal the luxury of not being “dumb.” Personally, I think it’s pretty fucking stupid for a general of his stature to allow ANY reporter from Rolling Stone to observe him and his closest aides, let alone giving widespread circulation to a written publication containing contemptuous words of the kind contained throughout this article. It’s a pretty open and shut case, really. The guy was an idiot every moment the Rolling Stone reporter was there and he didn’t shut his mouth and avoid openly trashing the civilian command of the military.
Your basic explanation for why she failed to see the Rolling Stone article as newsworthy are the exact reasons that it was newsworthy. I mean, that’s kind of a large point people are trying to make in this discussion. She is objecting to the newsworthiness of the article, because from her point of view, a primary concern of reporters should be protecting the reputation of their sources, especially if they are military personnel. She can’t see why it’s newsworthy because she is blinded by her exceedingly close ties to the subject at hand. And again, Stuck, the reason it is a giant scoop is because they were stupid enough to run their mouths off with a reporter around. That’s the entire game.
And what does it tell you that they didn’t object or try to claim that it was off the record before Rolling Stone went to print with the article?
I’m not assigning her anything. I’m taking her words at face value and analyzing them in relation to her previous work. She had no real incentive to jump into this fracas, let alone jump in and try to sully Michael Hastings and his work. Again, she outright lied about the nature of the quotes in his article. I find that to be a very revealing moment about what exactly motivates Lara Logan in her professional endeavors. I didn’t call her a hack and I didn’t say she is a part of the Establishment. What I did say is that she clearly sought to defend the Establishment in this instance, particularly its military elements.
I don’t really think you can dispute that, as you have agreed that she was off base in this instance.
sukabi
@ricky: It’s not Hastings’ failure, it’s the failure of the “journalists” covering Hastings article… they have made the story about Hastings instead of what a gigantic f’up McChrystal’s been. If the “author” of the COIN strategy doesn’t support the strategy in both actions and words, then how can the strategy succeed?
That’s the story the other “good journalists” are neglecting and helping to cover up with their sucking up to their “sources”… that’s the failure that can be taken from this “story”, and it’s not Hastings.
Corner Stone
@ricky:
If that was his intent then I applaud him further.
However, when President Obama chose Petraeus for the command that essentially killed any spark about a possible debate.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Midnight Marauder:
.
This is entire comment is a crock of shit in that it misinterprets or misreads about everything I’ve said on this thread where I have agreed with about every point you make, One giant strawman you are knocking down.. Are you drunk, or what?
celticdragonchick
@Kered (formerly Derek):
You are a veritable fount of knowledge. We all supplicate ourselves before your wisdom.
//
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Midnight Marauder:
And what do you think, Generals sit around chanting to civilian command icons as worship when they are in private with their comrades. Personally, I don’t think McCrystal is stupid in the least, I think he wanted to get canned, either consciously or sub consciously by letting this reporter hear and print this shit.
I don’t like him, and haven’t since the Tillman cover up that he should have been courts martialed for, and certainly not given command of Afghan. . But claiming generals as a general matter don’t and have not said similar shit in private about their civilian commanders they don’t like personally, or their decisions on military matters, is just silly. It is what they do in carrying out their orders that is important, and in this case allowing their dissent to be made public thru a reporter is just the same as saying it on CNN, imo.
celticdragonchick
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
This is why I am beginning to feel like this site is the left wing counterpart to Michelle Malkin. The faithful get to have their Minute of Hate against the Outrageous Outrage of the Day.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@celticdragonchick: And the crap about her sex life being relevant here, or mentioned at all in this debate makes me gag the same as when I visit the average wingnut blog comments. Which isn’t often these days, but I still remember. Good true progressivism, not.
celticdragonchick
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Indeed. Depressing, yes.
sukabi
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: the thing that’s being questioned is her judgment / fealty to power.
Logan could have stayed out of the fray, but SHE inserted HERSELF into the story and made unfounded accusations about Hastings… and she did it on the record, in front of rolling cameras… whether she did it out of spite from being “scooped” by a “nobody” or whether she’s out to protect “her industry” (that being corporate & military approved “news”, read that as propaganda) is anybody’s guess. But the result is the same… with Hastings’ story, you’ve got to question the veracity and scope of ALL embedded reporting…. because with the attitudes stated by her and her compatriots, there is a world of difference between what they are willing to report and what is actually happening on the ground.
Midnight Marauder
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
And I never said that generals don’t or have not said similar comments in private about civilian commanders. I have never disputed that point.
What I have disputed is that is not the circumstances we find ourselves dealing with in this instance, so it’s a bit of a false construction. McChrystal and Co. were never just saying shit about civilian commanders in private; they were doing it in front of a reporter working on an article that McChrystal signed off on. I don’t think that’s the same as doing a talking head interview with CNN, mainly because whoever was doing the interviewing for CNN would most likely fail to aggressively question or engage McChrystal on any substantive points. Not to mention the salient point that by McChrystal’s own admission after the article came out, he compromised the mission with his reckless, thoughtless behavior.
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Honestly, I don’t think I’m misappropriating your arguments at all. You maintained that “it was just behind the scenes locker room talk of soldiers bellyaching about their superiors, and no more substantive than that, albeit at very high level to where it was newsworthy for that reason alone.” My entire point was disagreeing with your assessment. You also mentioned how McChrystal’s actions were not “insubordination.”‘; so I instead went with the word “contempt” and attempt to demonstrate why the semantics were besides the point. You said it seemed unlikely that McChrystal was dumb and that perhaps this entire situation was completely by his design to get out of his obligations to “finishing” the war. I disagree with that notion, and think this was more of a case of a general with a greatly inflated sense of self-importance who was used to doing business with toothless stenographers that wouldn’t actually use his words and actions to hold him accountable. But that’s a valid disagreement, and it isn’t a strawman.
I used a great deal of quotes and citied your words exactly as you composed them in addressing you. Just because I happen to vigorously disagree with your position, does not mean I am misreading and misconstruing your position. We just disagree on this subject, that’s all it is. But I’ve been rather diligent in responding to the arguments you and everyone else have actually made, so let’s kill the bullshit straw man agruments.
Fallsroad
I’m very late, and there is a lovely, raging argument about the UCMJ in progress, but…
My brother was once a free lance reporter, and now deals with the media in his current capacity.
In a back and forth about Taibbi’s comments on Logan, and specifically in response to her sickening observation that “I mean, Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has,” I said, sarcastically “but she has, of course.”
And he replied:
(Massive blockquote fail is mine)
gwangung
@sukabi:
Which is why we don’t need to make snarky comments about her sex life, right?
She may have done some good things in the past, but it seems like we all agreed that she said a really, really stupid thing here, which is going to undercut what we see in her work in the future, right?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Midnight Marauder: No what you did was take quotes of mine out of context to build a straman or strawmen to argue with. Here is my original comment you replied to.
@General Egali Tarian Stuck::
And a later follow up of mine on this subject. @General Egali Tarian Stuck:
I have not denied and supported the premise that the story was newsworthy because Hasting’s was allowed to quote it on record and McChrystal did not object to it being printed when given the opportunity. And simply made the point that this kind of talk in private by all members of the military is common, even for general.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
And from an even earlier comment of mine
sukabi
@gwangung: It’s not that she said a “really, really stupid thing” this one time, it’s what that really, really stupid thing says about her judgment and devotion to power that should make EVERYONE question EVERYTHING she’s ever done.
and I’ll add that she’s shown that HER BEST INTERESTS do NOT align with keeping the public well informed, her comments align with keeping HER ACCESS and providing cover for the powerful.
Midnight Marauder
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
That’s outright bullshit from you. First of all, the initial quote you cite is one that I responded to in its entirety:
by responding directly to the ideas being expressed in that paragraph:
That’s a very specific disagreement with the specific ideas you are discussing in that specific statement. You say she doubts the article is newsworthy for the following reasons. I merely pointed out that those are the very reasons why the article became news in the first place. Yeah, that’s incredibly out of context.
But you have minimized the actual contemptuous nature of McChrystal and his staff’s rhetoric. Again, my point is that this kind of talk is not common in the military, and was well past the standard for acceptability for any solider, especially from a general of Stanley McChrystal’s stature. I would like to point your attention to a comment you made earlier in this thread:
Malfeasance is typically defined as the performance by a public official of an act that is legally unjustified, harmful, or contrary to law. You are trying to tell me now that McChrystal’s action didn’t constitute malfeasance?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@sukabi: Well, this is a dillema for all embedded reporting, now isn’t it. Not just with Logan. The military controls access completely. I have watched Logan for many years and she has at times made stinging rebukes to both the military and civilian leaders. Especially in Iraq, around the time just before the surge. She was widely panned by the wingnuts for this. I don’t trust that they are telling the whole story all the time, but not because they are “hacks” for the military or the government in general. But because they witness at the pleasure of the military. That is not the best scenario for war reporting, but in these regions, when reporters go off on their own, they run a real risk of getting their heads cut off on the internet.
sukabi
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: and this is something that the media as a whole could have pushed back against in the first Iraq war — but they didn’t, accepted these conditions with a wink and a nod.
That she’s done some reporting that wasn’t exactly complimentary at times isn’t so much a result of her integrity and veracity as a reporter, as it is a result of the pentagon using reporters to keep the propaganda believable…
if all the stories coming out of a war zone are painted schools and newly built hospitals eventually folks will get suspicious when their sons and daughters come home in body bags… especially if the news from other countries with reporters there tells a different story.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Midnight Marauder:
Oh bullshit, how would you know what soldiers talk about in private? This is arrogant mind reading you are not qualified for. And saying I doubt Logan thought it was newsworthy, not that I didn’t think it was. I was just speculating on what she might have been thinking, not that I know like you and some of our other mind reading wizards here opine she is a lying hack. You sound like Greenwald.
This Bullshit is what I am talking about. I consistently stated or strongly indicated that the fact it was allowed to become public by McCrystal made it newsworthy, but not the private bitching behind closed doors. The fact that it was newsworthy also because in was at a high level is a separate reason, as no one would care much if these were privates bitching about their company commander.
@Midnight Marauder:
And then you said this.
@Midnight Marauder
And just now this.
:
@Midnight Marauder:
You are full of shit today Maurader where you usually aren’t . Maybe you should just quit this nonsense.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@sukabi: Well, I agree that our media totally sucked in the Iraq war run up and a long time after that. And they still do, but by and large not Logan, except for her blathering about Hasting’s and aghast at why MCchystal had to be fired by Obama.
This woman has been mostly slogging through two wars for a decade, in the field, much of the time. If it were me, I may have just blown my brains out already from seeing so much death and destruction. She fucked up here, and I think it was from some form of Stockholm Syndrome. It is a wonder she and others like her aren’t slobbering mental cases by now. So I will give her a break and a pass on this one fuckup. Or, maybe I just want to fuck her. I won’t deny that I would.
sukabi
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: just because you happen to like her particular brand of “reportage” and her rack, doesn’t mean she’s a good reporter. It means you can be rolled by a pretty face.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@celticdragonchick:
> You can seriously go fuck yourself.
> However the military may be misused, those men
> and women take and oath to defend the Constitution,
> and serve and defend their country, including pricks
> like you.
And you can seriously go fuck yourself twice. Today, those “men and women” unquestioningly follow illegal orders, wage war without a declaration of war, commit war crimes, torture, dig their bullets out of the bellies of the pregnant women they shoot in order to escape the consequences of their vile actions, trash the Constitution, and simply murder strangers and innocent civilians without cause but on the order of other strangers because they’re too lazy to do the right thing. The last thing these soldiers do is defend their country in any way. They are amoral, depraved chickenshit murderers, violent bullies, and all-around bad people — almost as bad as the ruff n tuff keyboard commandos who cheer them on to further depravity. I recommend peace to you all as an alternative. Have a nice day. :)
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Midnight Marauder:
In private life, speech by itself is not malfeasance. It takes a criminal action or conspiracy with one act to set the conspiracy in motion. In the military, speech is a crime of sorts, or can be. It is called conduct unbecoming an officer, and is subject to general courts martial. It is a real stretch to call what Mccrhrystal said malfeasance, but you have stretched about everything else I’ve said in this thread, so go for it.
And I answered your last comment, but am in moderation for some reason.
James in WA
@celticdragonchick:
It’s already happened to Crooks’n’Liars and Thinkprogress. I basically can’t read those anymore.
This thread notwithstanding, there is still a lot of good dialogue at BJ. But the hyperbolic excess in this particular thread is definitely surreal and disturbing. No wonder Cole goes batshit every so often and fires a full bore stream of invective at the comments.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@sukabi: Dumbass@General Egali Tarian Stuck: , I was responding by mocking a claim from another commenter upthread saying I might want to fuck her.
sukabi
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: no where in the military is there an expectation of “private life”, especially if you’re the General in command of a war op. McChrystal was directly in violation of the military code of conduct. There is no question about that.
sukabi
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: really? it just sounded like you were being a dumbass, as you said.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I called this on my own blog when this thing first broke. That it would be demagogued by the left to generally bash the Afghan war. I think most of this thread is code for that bashing. Others may disagree.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@sukabi: Has everyone on this blog gone insane and now unable to read English, without interpreting it to mean what they want it to say for argument sake. Jeebus fucking Christ dude. I said it was a crime in the military to say what Mcchrysal said, subject to courts martial. Read idjits, read.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@James in WA: This blog is hanging on, sometimes by the fingernails, like with this thread. But hanging on.
sukabi
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: you might want to take your own advice there… dude-ette.
Midnight Marauder
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Of course, the salient point in this discussion is that Stanley McChrystal’s speech was no longer relegated to his private life, and was instead, plastered all over the pages of Rolling Stone. So while I understand the point you are making, it falls apart when the reality of McChrystal’s situation is applied. I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to classify McChrystal’s continued recalcitrance as malfeasance. More importantly, no one has a private life when they voluntarily sign up to be followed around for weeks by a reporter from Rolling Stone.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Midnight Marauder: call it whatever you want dude. But the malfeasance I was talking about was not intended to include your definition. Got any more nonsense to parse on what I’ve said on this blog? The night is young, and there are inanities to discover.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@sukabi: You’re all about the substance, sukabi. Lay it on us.
sukabi
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: you’ll notice that our conversation took a dive with your comment here… everything else that follows is just bullshit, as you well know. If you want to pretend otherwise, that’s fine.
Midnight Marauder
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Personally, I think your current argument is a little confusing. You are saying that what McChrystal said is a crime by military standards, but that “it is a real stretch” to label such speech malfeasance. But if it’s a crime, then would it not naturally follow that his actions could be classified as malfeasance, particularly given the military code for officers speaking about civilian command in such a blunt and disparaging fashion?
It just seems like you’re making a very strange distinction in this case, and I don’t necessarily understand why.
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
The definition I was going with is the one provided by the military. You know, the institution that perfectly understood why McChrystal had to go. So if you have a different definition of the term, mayhaps you would share it so that we can actually have a constructive dialogue and create a better contextual understanding of each other’s positions?
Or you could just continue to maintain that I’m arguing in bad faith and purposefully misconstruing all of your arguments.
Your call, Stuck.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Midnight Marauder:
Because in the military it is called “Conduct Unbecoming an Officer” not malfeasance. And there is no corresponding law outside the military for such crimes of speech. Oh what the fuck is the use. I said call it what you want.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Midnight Marauder:
I choose this one, because it’s true.
celticdragonchick
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
Maybe Sweden would be a better place for you to live, since it is obvious that you hate having thousands of sociopathic mass murderers carrying out orders in your name and with your tax dollars…assuming you are not a concern troll trying to provoke something and make a left leaning site look utterly unhinged.
Obviously, since I was one of those mass murder enablers, you should be trying to bring me and everybody like me to The Hague for justice, or don’t you have the courage of your convictions?
Just curious.
Midnight Marauder
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
You are a fucking joke tonight.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Midnight Marauder: I say you are the joke, and a liar. and probly drunk to be such a smarmy tight assed prick.
celticdragonchick
@James in WA:
I spend more time at LGF for that reason. The insanity is kept in check and you still get plenty of fun laughing at teh crazy from Palin and her friends.
celticdragonchick
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Forget it, Jake.
It’s Chinatown.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@celticdragonchick:
Really, I got registered over there back in the winter, but never started commenting. I could use a little insanity kept in check with more threads like these being the trend here
Midnight Marauder
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
And I merely responded by pointing out the ways that Logan’s thinking was flawed. That’s not calling her a hack. That’s not saying she’s some kind of perennial Establishment sell-out. That’s just saying, IN THIS INSTANCE, her priorities were aligned with the Establishment, particularly its military aspects. Again, she had no reason to insert herself into this situation, let alone attempt to slander Michael Hastings and his work. I do not know if she is a hack, but I do know that her behavior towards Hastings was deplorable.
So you are comparing a statement where I said that generals do, in fact, make comments of this nature, with one where I said that such comments are not common, and well beyond the levels of acceptability for military personnel. I don’t think that’s the “GOTCHA” moment you think it is; I don’t believe those two sentiments are mutually exclusive. Soldiers can make all kinds of remarks of all kinds of varying natures without those types of remarks being commonplace.
What I really don’t understand still is why you are being so insistent and surly about the idea that I’m arguing with you in bad faith.
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Exactly.
celticdragonchick
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Give it a shot. I am getting sour on some of the Pavlov response hate here. I see enough of that on the right.
Another thing I have noticed is the trend for ‘members only’ mythology (like Kool Kidz villagers) that is taken for granted by the commenters but would leave anybody outside the bubble wondering what the fuck we are talking about.
Cole brought up this very problem with the GOP and the unhinged Right before the last election.
It seems to be a problem here as well.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Midnight Marauder: sober up. I still loves ya.:)
Et Tu Brutus?
Moo
Allan
@celticdragonchick: Would you like one of us to show you how to bookmark LGF on your computer so you don’t keep ending up here by mistake?
Et Tu Brutus?
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: For some no doubt. But to be clear regarding my opinion, I honor the service of all those who do or have worn a uniform in the US military, while deploring some of the acts those in uniform may commit during the fog of war. This includes the recently fired general.
Midnight Marauder
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
If I was in drunken rage mode, you would know it.
Besides, it’s still a tad too early for that. I only maraud at midnight, if you will recall.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@celticdragonchick:
> Maybe Sweden would be a better place for you to live
Maybe it would. And maybe you could move to Antarctica, where there are fewer innocent civilians to murder.
> since it is obvious that you hate having thousands of
> sociopathic mass murderers carrying out orders in your
> name and with your tax dollars…
Yes, unlike you, I do hate that.
> Obviously, since I was one of those mass murder enablers,
> you should be trying to bring me and everybody like me to
> The Hague for justice, or don’t you have the courage of
> your convictions?
Obviously, I’d need some serious cash for that, which you well know. Can you demonstrate the courage of your convictions and send me some? Thanks!
gil mann
Logan’s way wrong about this, and her line about how Hastings never served his country like McChrystal is downright odious.
That said, all the scumbags on this thread throwing accusations and creepy sexist bullshit around don’t have one of her brass balls between ’em.
celticdragonchick
@Allan:
Showing up to annoy you makes all the blather worthwhile.
*smooch!*
celticdragonchick
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
That depends on whether my doctoral work in geology sends me there. It’s bit early to speculate, since I am shopping for my master’s program right now. I am very interested in glaciology and climatology, however.
Black and white certitudes are certainly comforting.
Good luck with that. Utopianism always promises far more then will ever be delivered, however…
James in WA
@celticdragonchick:
FFS, things are weird when Charles Johnson seems measured and reasonable by comparison with BJ threads. What’s next? Tunch losing weight?
James in WA
@celticdragonchick:
Shorter: They are aware of all Internet Traditions.
mvr
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: I’m sort of with GETS. The comments were wrong and dumb. LL has done good reporting in the past. There were certain points in 2006-07 where it seemed that she and a few other people were really eager to get the word out about how far from reality the stuff we were fed really was. And there weren’t too many other such folk. And I find it hard to believe that she didn’t risk life and limb to tell us that. For whatever reasons and whatever motives, that was good and useful work.
At the same time, most people who are admirable in one way or another are not admirable all the time. What she said in this case was BS. But it was understandable BS in the sense that this is the sort of BS that one might expect from someone in her position. There is a dynamic at work here that would make someone that embedded in the military identify with the military. She herself might have a great deal of disdain for reporters who remain stateside and report beltway wisdom. She might lump her target here in with those folks. And that might get her to miss the larger picture — that what we want from the press is reporting and if they have to burn those in power to give us reporting so be it. Those in power have enough of their own resources.
So she’s human and in this case stupid and even mean. That’s good grounds to criticize what she says. And it is good reason to think about the dynamics involved. But she doesn’t have to be a total idiot to act totally idiotic. None of us do.
So, no defense of what she said, and no defense of the dynamics that make it predictable that someone in her position is going to say this. But let’s not just assume we’d do better in the same spot.
celticdragonchick
@James in WA:
LOL, I hope not.
We just got an adorable (and somewhat psychotic) kitten who enjoys trying to tackle passersby.
mclaren
geg6 keeps getting shit, whereas as far as I can tell, geg6 is the only person here who seems to have a clue what real reporters do and what their job actually involves.
@geg6:
Correctamundo.
Out in the real world, real reporters tyipcally get their big scoops not from secret inside sources (the Pentagon Paprs case is a big exception) or from some off-the-record conversation with a Big Honcho, but from doing hundreds of hours of boring grindingly dull research.
The reporters who break the really huge stories typically do it by immersing themselves in paperwork. Bureaucratic records, budget breakdowns, expense slips submitted by public officials, official charters of public interest research groups, all that kind of mind-numbing boring detail.
Reporters find out where the corruption and the lies and scams occur by burrowing through mountains of paperwork and discerning the scam at the bottom of it. This is the way Watergate was broken — by examining the public disclosure documents of the Committee to Re-Elect the president in 1972. This is the way the Enron scandal was broken — by examining the balance sheets of all the shell corporations Enron created to generate those scam trades.
Big stories never get broken because some reporter sucks up to a Pentagon official or a West Wing hack. The big stories get broken by reporters who burrow down into the minutia of the all the government paperwork and figure out that the thievery and the lies are going on underneath the surface, leaving audit trails of money and influence-peddling and corruption and lies in the paperwork.
Allan
@celticdragonchick:
It’s not often I’m privileged to meet a person who brags about herself in advance of the actual achievement. Today has truly been special.
Corner Stone
@mclaren:
I like the mention of Enron. Not that that was the model story for reporters, or how it goes all the time.
But Enron was fatally wounded by one analyst basically repeating on earnings calls, “Hey. WTF are you trying to pull?”
And then she got blasted for it. But didn’t stop.
That, to me, seems like what reporters could and should be doing in a lot of factual areas.
Phoebe
@Laertes: I think what you think, and further: I think that they got drunk and let it rip around Hastings because they sensed that HE was a kool kid, and not some suck up trotting alongside like a puppy.
Phoebe
@Et Tu Brutus?: Yeah!
Phoebe
@Keith G: I kinda thought she was selling it on the Daily Show that one time. Super annoying. And I’m not saying this because she’s pretty. I thought Samantha Power was very pretty, but she clearly was not selling it.
celticdragonchick
@Allan:
Mentioning future education goals is bragging? Who knew?
That’s okay. You know I love you.
*smooch!*
Allan
@celticdragonchick: I’m just glad that you figured out this early in life that you’re best suited working with inanimate objects.
Pleasant dreams of accepting your Nobel!
James in WA
@Allan:
Let me guess: you never went to grad school?
Paul in KY
Anyone who thinks this thread was particularily odious or nasty must have a delicate constitution. This one was quite friendly compared to your average Glenn Greenwald 500 post slugfest & I used to hang out at Steve Gilliard’s blog (RIP, Steve) & you had to bring it hard in there every day or you’d be chewed up & spit out of teh internets.
celticdragonchick
@Allan:
I don’t know of any Nobels awarded in the earth sciences. It seems to have escaped you that my response to Uncle Clarence Thomas was a form of absurdism, since his invitation for me to go to Antarctica was silly and…absurd.
I am indeed, planning on finishing a Ph.D in my field, but I chose to work this in to my answer to him in a faux straightforward pattern. I have no intention of going to the South Pole or anywhere near it, and I intended my answer to be gently ironic. I need to work on that, it seems.
As far as working with inanimate objects, well, I will likely be teaching.
Fancy that. Hide your kids!