There has of course been a great deal of controversy over the last several days concerning the comments of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Peter Pace, concerning homosexuals in the military. The purpose of this post is not to expound my views on this topic, but to ask our readers this: why did General Pace decide to make these comments now?
It is a reasonable assumption that General Pace is an intelligent and very media-aware individual, given his education, assignments and experience. It would be very difficult for anyone to convince me that he didn't think his comments would cause this sort of reaction. So why did he do it? Why these comments, now?
Simple misdirection? Could be. Between this and the pursuit of the Adjutant General, I certainly haven't seen anything about the troop surge on the news in the last few days. One might actually believe from the press that there haven't been any bombings or attacks. Or is there something deeper?
Comments (3)
Interesting questions. It does seem to have taken some air out of GEN Petraeus' comments about requiring a political solution to succeed in Iraq, among the other things you mentioned. On the other hand, the Walter Reed fiasco seems to be a doing a pretty good job of that on its own. You cannot rule out the possibility he just opened his mouth and inserted his foot.
Posted by G'Kar | March 14, 2007 4:45 PM
Posted on March 14, 2007 16:45
Then again, I haven't heard anything more since the last resignation. The timing's about right, and the first batch of resignations definitely didn't appease the media. You might be onto something here.
Which is not of course to say that the issues raised at Walter Reed are not appalling and should not be dealt with as quickly as possible. Heads definitely deserve to roll, and "we didn't know" is not and should not be an excuse.
Unfortunately, the reason that I like Walter Reed for a match here is that, unlike the troop surge and attacks in Iraq, I think it very possible for the media to forget about Walter Reed and move onto the next big story for us to talk about. This would be a shame, but it does happen fairly frequently.
Nor am I attempting to start a conspiracy theory thread. It simply struck me as highly unlikely someone that polished would make such a gaffe.
Posted by Marcus | March 14, 2007 5:20 PM
Posted on March 14, 2007 17:20
I liked Jim Henley's theory.
Posted by Ugh | March 14, 2007 6:05 PM
Posted on March 14, 2007 18:05