Flashback: Media Promoted Military Criticism of President Bush | NewsBusters.org
For people with any memory, please recall that from 2003-2008, the national media policy was that any military officer of any stripe that would publicly criticize Bush in any forum was "a courageous whistle blower, concerned for our nation, worthy of our highest respect" -- the media question would always be "is Bush Listening". Any recollection at all of Gen. Eric Shinseki??
At that time, every media person was a war expert, as well as any military person current or retired that agreed with them. The war in Iraq was clearly lost, there was no hope, we should get out -- and focus on the war in Afghanistan, which we MUST WIN!! Wesley Clark ran for President largely on a "General knows better than Bush", and there were all sorts of "Generals Against Bush" (all, or nearly all retired) sorts of political Ads out there. They knew that Iraq was lost as well. It was all as certain as global cooling in the early '70s and the fact that the planet was out of oil in the late '70s. Wisdom is rarely popular, and popular thought is rarely wise.
My how times have changed!!! Now, relatively mild criticism from a Generals staff in a Rock and Roll mag, that is about process, not policy, "calls into question the civilian control of the military". The MSM (and BO) were wrong about Iraq -- it wasn't lost, the surge worked. While the MSM is of course completely ignoring it, the much vaunted "day one changes in policy" in Afghanistan failed, and now the "setting a date and surging more troops with months of dithering to make the decision" is at least in grave question. Since we set a date, apparently Afghanistan is no longer "the war we must win".
Oh, and lest I forget, they had disparaging remarks about Joe Biden. How unusual! Has anyone that has ever worked for ANYONE else not heard some "bitching about the leadership over beers"? Certainly, having a reporter there was completely stupid, but again, confident and strong leadership isn't going to be bothered by that -- although I'm sure that pompous, vacuous, prima donna Slow Joe, was incensed beyond belief. Truth can be so hurtful.
It seems pretty clear from a media POV that at this point "BO is the President that must be successful", and right now that is more important than National Security and the Economy at least. After 60 days of the oil spill, there is some dithering in the MSM if BO's success is more important than the environment.
Should Generals go out and let their staff get wasted with Rolling Stone Reporters? No, absolutely not. However, last I recalled, BO is a smoker, which I believe even he would admit is "less than perfect", and who knows, it is remotely possible he may have other faults -- say a couple of small narcissistic tendencies.Strong leadership tends to not be overly threatened by the problems that come with having humans on your team -- the bigger issue is what players can best accomplish the task at hand with the minimum loss of our soldiers.
But then we already knew that BO wasn't any sort of a leader at all, let alone a strong one, so I can't see that he had, or likely even considered seriously any other choice but to fire McChrystal.
For people with any memory, please recall that from 2003-2008, the national media policy was that any military officer of any stripe that would publicly criticize Bush in any forum was "a courageous whistle blower, concerned for our nation, worthy of our highest respect" -- the media question would always be "is Bush Listening". Any recollection at all of Gen. Eric Shinseki??
At that time, every media person was a war expert, as well as any military person current or retired that agreed with them. The war in Iraq was clearly lost, there was no hope, we should get out -- and focus on the war in Afghanistan, which we MUST WIN!! Wesley Clark ran for President largely on a "General knows better than Bush", and there were all sorts of "Generals Against Bush" (all, or nearly all retired) sorts of political Ads out there. They knew that Iraq was lost as well. It was all as certain as global cooling in the early '70s and the fact that the planet was out of oil in the late '70s. Wisdom is rarely popular, and popular thought is rarely wise.
My how times have changed!!! Now, relatively mild criticism from a Generals staff in a Rock and Roll mag, that is about process, not policy, "calls into question the civilian control of the military". The MSM (and BO) were wrong about Iraq -- it wasn't lost, the surge worked. While the MSM is of course completely ignoring it, the much vaunted "day one changes in policy" in Afghanistan failed, and now the "setting a date and surging more troops with months of dithering to make the decision" is at least in grave question. Since we set a date, apparently Afghanistan is no longer "the war we must win".
Oh, and lest I forget, they had disparaging remarks about Joe Biden. How unusual! Has anyone that has ever worked for ANYONE else not heard some "bitching about the leadership over beers"? Certainly, having a reporter there was completely stupid, but again, confident and strong leadership isn't going to be bothered by that -- although I'm sure that pompous, vacuous, prima donna Slow Joe, was incensed beyond belief. Truth can be so hurtful.
It seems pretty clear from a media POV that at this point "BO is the President that must be successful", and right now that is more important than National Security and the Economy at least. After 60 days of the oil spill, there is some dithering in the MSM if BO's success is more important than the environment.
Should Generals go out and let their staff get wasted with Rolling Stone Reporters? No, absolutely not. However, last I recalled, BO is a smoker, which I believe even he would admit is "less than perfect", and who knows, it is remotely possible he may have other faults -- say a couple of small narcissistic tendencies.Strong leadership tends to not be overly threatened by the problems that come with having humans on your team -- the bigger issue is what players can best accomplish the task at hand with the minimum loss of our soldiers.
But then we already knew that BO wasn't any sort of a leader at all, let alone a strong one, so I can't see that he had, or likely even considered seriously any other choice but to fire McChrystal.
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