“I think the misunderstanding on Spoons’ and Ramesh’s part have to do with the nature of the military. Military officers don’t rat on one another. It’s part of the code.”

What part of The Code says that military men (hell, ANY men) should go around saying, “Let me tell you. I know things about that guy’s integrity and character and they’re not good. That’s all I’m sayin.”

Shelton is a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs fer crissake. It would certainly not have been beyond his political skills to say, “My vote is private” or “I haven’t decided who I’ll be voting for” or “I plan to support someone else” or “No, I don’t think I’ll be voting for Wes.”

Any of those would have been acceptable. Yes, some of those could be interpreted as not favorable to Clark, but at least they’re honorable. What Shelton did was not.

As for Burns, I think you’re wrong there, too. Burns wrote a scathing piece saying that reporters eager to protect their own positions covered up many of the facts about what they knew about Saddam’s regime. Burns, however, eager to protect his own position, covers up many of the facts about what he knows about corruption in journalism, including a “major american newspaper” and the “vast majority of correspondents” in Iraq.

In other words, John Burns’ sky is falling because some (several) major news outlets are corrupt and not creidble, but he won’t tell which outlets he means! That’s worse than useless. It makes the reader doubt EVERY news outlet. Moreover, even though I’m sympathetic to Burns’ view, it’s entirely possible he’s wrong. The accused should have a chance to rebut.

Imagine what would happen if a lib reporter published a story saying “Several U.S. newspapers knew that there were no WMDs, but agreed with the Administration to suppress that information. Those papers also have evidence of Bush’s true motivation in going to war — evidence they refuse to print.”

You’d either scream bloody murder or just laugh out loud at the pointlessness of it all. Burns deserves the same reaction if he doesn’t come forward soon with the details.

Oh, by the way, your Kazaan example is off-target.

If you believe that Kazaan was complicit in an unfair and unjustified witch hunt, then what he did was wrong. In contrast, if Burns were to expose actual corruption that he knew about, that’d be clearly right.

Burns is also in a different position in that he’s a journalist. Moreover, he’s specifically come forward to write that OTHER journalists are corrupt because they refuse to report the truth for their own selfish motives. What Burns misses is that he’s doing the same thing.

Re Burns, two words: Elia Kazan. Two more words: Eason Jordan. Two more words: Mike Kelly. It’s pretty clear who Burns is talking about, at least to me. He’s talking primarily about CNN. Why should one reporter be expected to do all the heavy lifting on this?

Re Shelton. The question about Clark put him in an awkward position, where anything he said would be taken to mean more than face value. He was sharp enough to realize that. But have you ever seen Shelton in an interview or press conference? He’s not very good, not at all quick or glib. He’s a decent person (though I was never a fan when he was the CJ), but not ready for prime time when it comes to Q&As. I think the whole thing caught him off guard, and he felt like he’d be breaking the code to say too much, but he’s too honest to just let the question go or spin it away. So he fumbled it a bit—that’s not a smear.

Kazan was right, but to this day is unfairly maligned. He outed, naming names, people who were destroying freedom of expression, but it got spun around so that he was the bad guy.

That’s what the press will do to Burns if he names names.

I do want to be crystal clear about one thing. In mentioning Mike Kelly, I’m referring to his own criticism of CNN reporters and their actions in Iraq during the Gulf War, not to anything Kelly did himself. Kelly didn’t name names either, though it’s clear from the context that he’s talking about the Live From Baghdad team of Peter Arnett, Bernard Shaw, the late John Holliman and their producers and assistants.

Burns seems to be hitting both the CNN people and an unnamed print reporter, as well as others. Would I like to know who he’s talking about? Of course. Is he under obligation to name the reporter who ratted on him? I don’t think so.

“He’s talking primarily about CNN. Why should one reporter be expected to do all the heavy lifting on this?”

Actually, his most specific allegations refer to a “major American newspaper”.

As for whether Burns had an obligation to come forward and report corruption, I would argue that as a journalist, he absolutely did. Even if you debate that, though, I don’t see how you can justify his coming forward, saying that jouranalism (inclusing “the vast majority” of Iraq correspondents) is corrupt, but then saying, “I know the rest, but I’m not gonna tell.”

Journalists would flip out if anyone in any other industry or field of human endeavor tried that.

I’ve read both sides of this, and I think I’m with Bryan on this one.

It would be good if Burns would name names, but I don’t think he’s required to do so.

Saying that Burns’ credibility is on the line is simply not true, because Burns has build up a credible record for many years as a reporter and I haven’t heard anyone saying they thought Burns was lying. Why would anyone think that CNN was the only American news organization “seeing no evil” and ingratiating themselves with Saddam? Spoons, how could Burns possibly be “casting a pall on the entire Iraq-War press corps” when Eason Jordan had already done just that? We already knew that most of the reporters in Baghdad before the war were scum. Burns is only confirming that.

(By the way, Spoons, what’s wrong with making the “reader doubt EVERY news outlet”? They should be doing that anyway — the real danger is that readers would take the liberal media at face value.)

Nor do I think Gen. Shelton is required to go into greater detail about the “integrity and character” issues — as much as I would like him to. It’s entirely possible that the “integrity” issue that Gen. Shelton has with Clark cannot be independently verified or refuted (e.g. Clark lied to Shelton over the phone).

If Shelton had spilled the beans about the details, that would only make the issue a bigger story and hurt Clark more. I think that it’s ridiculous to say that Clark’s campaign would benefit at this point from a public confrontation with Gen. Shelton. Can Shelton really be acting dishonorably toward Clark by doing him a favor and keeping the details to himself? If Clark challenged Shelton on the issue and Shelton demurred … then that would be dishonorable.

Making the reader intelligently question the sources from which they get their news is good. Saying, “Half the news sources are dishonest and corrupt — now guess which” is not helpful. It’s harmful if the public is fooled into believing lies. It’s equally harmful if they are misled into disbelieving the truth. Assuming that there are honest, honorable reporters out there (a leap of faith, I grant you), Burns has unfairly besmirched them.

I think it’s important to keep two facts in mind when evaluating Burns actions: 1) Burns is a reporter, and thus is at least nominally committed to notions of “Truth” and “The Public’s Right to Know.” Burns knows the truth about a story that’s clearly, by Burns’ own judgment, extremely newsworthy. But he’s not telling. That’s a violation of every conceivable pretense of journalistic ethics.

2) Remember, Burns is the one who came forward in the first place. He’s the one who put his views in the public eye. He’s the one who said, “Look! Look! Corruption!” No one forced him to come forward and talk about what he saw in Iraq — that was his choice. Now he wants to withhold bits of the story, presumably so as not to damage his own position in the press corps. I’m amazed that you don’t see the irony, given that that is exactly what Burns is so outraged that other reporters have done.

With Shelton, my take is a bit different.… Let me put it this way: I think both men said either too much, or too little. They should have told the whole story, or none of it.

In Burns’ case, I think the best course would have been to spill everything. That’s his job, that’s the ethics of his profession, and he had a professional duty to fully expose corruption in that profession when he encountered it.

In Shelton’s case, he’d have been far better saying nothing. Attacking another man’s honor — which is what Shelton has done to Clark — is one of the most serious things you can do to him. If you’re going to head down that road, you ought to stand up straight, say what you think, and be prepared to defend your remarks. Shelton was either intemperate in saying anything, or cowardly in not saying what he really thought. Take your pick.

By the way, the after-the-fact speculation that everybody knew what Shelton meant (the TV crack) doesn’t hold much water. That stuff doesn’t exactly sound like it’s directed at Clark’s “integrity and character.” Besides, look at what the first wave of reportage on this was (Drudge, Sullivan, Reynolds, etc.) All took the tone of “Oooh, a general has inside dirt on Clark! I wonder what Clark did?”

Yeah, I think that’s pretty dishonorable. Shelton could mostly salvage it now by either telling all, or issuing a retraction stating, “My issues with Mr. Clark are between him and I. I do not intend to go into them further, and I should not have raised those issues in response to the reporter’s questions. I apologize for the indiscretion, and will have no more to say on the subject.”

Now, I’d prefer that Shelton tell all (that’s curiosity), but I’d be impressed as hell with Shelton if he stood up and took the latter tack, as well.

Spoons,

With respect to Shelton, even if I were to accept your argument, I really don’t see why it would be such a big deal. Shelton’s opinion that Clark has issues with integrity and character really doesn’t compare to the Democrats’ screaming “BUSH LIED!!!” every single day. In these days of “lying liars,” does anyone care anymore? Being called a liar by Shelton probably even helps Clark with the Democratic base, because they seem to like them. [bonus points for Clark if he lied about sex!]

PS I agree with you that Shelton was probably referring to an incident that has NOT been reported in the press. Nothing that I have seen reported relates to an issue of integrity while Clark was SACEUR.

I guess I just expect a little more from Shelton than from your average Democrat — especially when the blogosphere has been tittering with excitement at Shelton’s remarks.

Fair enough I guess. I might expect more of him too—but that still doesn’t make what he said a “smear.” When I think of a smear artist, I think of the WaPo twisting Cheney’s quote to mean the opposite of what he said, or some of the stuff James Carville does like accusing Republicans of wanting to starve babies and kick old people out of their houses. That’s a smear, to me. To borrow the language of impeachment, I don’t think Shelton’s comments rise to the level of a smear.

And, I do think the TV war from Kosovo has everything to do with Shelton’s opinion, though I don’t think he expected everyone to know what he was talking about. If he expected that, he’d have just said flat out what he was talking about. That’s where I think you’re wrong, ultimately, to connect Burns to Shelton. The two situations bear a superficial similarity, but are in reality quite different.

Shelton was asked about a specific person, and demurred (not enough, or too much, to satisfy you). Burns didn’t name anyone specifically but offered specific complaints. The two did the opposite thing. And for Burns, his not naming names may also have to do with how much concrete evidence he may or may not have against the reporter who ratted on him. If he has no evidence (and how could he, really?), naming names could potentially expose him to a libel suit.

For what it’s worth, an example of a smear artist from the right (well, sometimes) is Andrew Sullivan. Read anything he says about evangelical Christians or Rhodes Scholars—that’s a smear.

And what’s his beef with Rhodes Scholars, anyway? Was he turned down for a Rhodes Scholarship at some point or what?

Bryan,

As far as Sullivan goes, my first thought was the same as yours, but he’s British and thus ineligible for a Rhodes scholarship. All I can think is that a Rhodes scholar must have beat him up when he was at Oxford or something. It’s truly an amazing animus he carries, though.

Burns should spill the beans. After all, his criticism of the media in Iraq was that it didn’t spill the beans about Saddam.

How is Burns any better if he refuses to name names? Ultimately he is supressing the news which is what they did. There is some hypocrisy at work here.