This Fictional Captain Knows Something

That a certain real four-star general never bothered to figure out.

Captain Miller: I don't gripe to you, Reiben. I'm a captain. There's a chain of command. Gripes go up, not down. Always up. You gripe to me, I gripe to my superior officer, so on, so on, and so on. I don't gripe to you. I don't gripe in front of you. You should know that as a Ranger.

This is why Attila doesn't drink with the Huns: because subordinates take their cues about organizational culture from their superiors, and while has is been a time-honored tradition for young guns to hang and bang and bitch about goddamn, know-nothing REMFs since before the time of Xerxes and well after the invention of Technicolor

if you're the boss and under the color of that authority you give your young guns explicit approval to use their Outside Voices when they are Inside, then eventually every room becomes the locker room and the discipline that holds the whole enterprise together breaks down.

Of course, on this topic, since the actual history of the United States does not comport particularly well with David Fucking Brooks'

"Hippies Ruined the World" hobbyhorse version of history, he has been forced once again to use his column in the New York Times today -- "The Culture of Exposure" -- as his own personal Wingnut Procrusteanizer to mash the past into a more pleasing shape.

For example, in Bobo's edition of American History a General George Patton could never have had his career derailed by something as trivial as a slap

and a few editorial cartoons.

And General MacArthur could not have been fired for mouthing off in public:


Such things simply were not done back when the press knew its place.

Then, of course, came the Fucking 60s, when, according to Bobo,

"...after Vietnam, an ethos of exposure swept the culture. The assumption among many journalists was that the establishment may seem upstanding, but there is a secret corruption deep down."

Yeah, I wonder where anyone would have gotten that idea:


Hes goes on and on like that -- straining at gnats and swallowing, apparently, the entire Bush Administration -- until we arrive at the Present Day, when the thoroughly supercalifragilisticexpialidawesome McChrystal, (who was

...excellent at his job. He had outstanding relations with the White House and entirely proper relationships with his various civilian partners in the State Department and beyond. He set up a superb decision-making apparatus that deftly used military and civilian expertise.

)
was done in by some filthy insect of a "journalist" who "reported" on what McChrystal "actually said" while speaking "on the record".

Which, in turn, will of course kick in afterburners on the hand-baskets which we are all riding straight to Hell:

"...Another scalp is on the wall. Government officials will erect even higher walls between themselves and the outside world. The honest and freewheeling will continue to flee public life, and the cautious and calculating will remain.

The culture of exposure has triumphed, with results for all to see."

In other words...


But you know, for once, I can absolutely understand why Bobo is so very pissed.

First, as professional bootlicker to the rich and powerful, seeing some unshaven beatnik working the body of one of Bobo's biggest man-crushes (while in the pay of that magazine!) must make his flunky soul shiver with rage.

Second, if this "reporting" thing ever catches on in a big way, David Brooks damn well knows he'll be out of a legit* his day job as the official NYT/NBC/PBS/NPR establishmentarian testicle-cozy and forced to seek work as a Fox Weather Bunny quicker than you can say "Judith Miller".


* (Correction noted, Rehctaw)