Like luncheon meat, sometimes it's best if we don't know how news is made, and that's especially true of the Sunday political talk shows. A case in point was Jon Krakauer's plug for his book Where Men Win Glory at the end of NBC's Meet the Press yesterday. The appearance was justified by the fact that Krakauer's subject, Corporal Pat Tillman, could be tied by way of the expansive concept of news analysis to General McChrystal's leadership of operations in Afghanistan. What follows are a few facts and one speculation relevant to Krakauer's conclusions.Fact: The Army screwed up in how it handled Corporal Tillman's Silver Star, and General McChrystal was a responsible party to that mess. The Army then made things worse for itself by going into bureaucratic self-defense mode to hide the screw-up.
Fact: General McChrystal acknowledged his role and apologized in his Senate confirmation testimony in June.
LT. GEN. STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL: We failed the family. And I was a part of that, and I apologize for it. My own mistakes in not reviewing the Silver Star citation well enough and making sure that I compared it to the message that I sent were mistakes. They were well intentioned, but they created, they added to the doubt and the sense of mistrust. And we didn't get it right.
What we have learned since is, it is better to take your time, make sure you get everything right with the award, and not rush it. And I'm very sorry for that, because I understand that the outcome produced a perception that I don't believe was at all involved, at least in the forces that were for it.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), Arizona: And you believe that Corporal Tillman earned the Silver Star by his actions before he died?
LT. GEN. STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL: Sir, I absolutely do. I did then; I do now.
Fact: NBC chose not to show the apology to balance Krakauer's claims, although David Gregory did note that "even those who are critical of him and the Army say they don't think that [McChrystal] intentionally deceived them."
Fact: General McChrystal appears in four pages of Krakauer's 400 page book. In the first mention, he's damned with innuendo as a "politically shrewd" officer who "worked under the radar" and was "trusted absolutely" by Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. In the second, which is reliably sourced, he is seen warning his chain of command not to hype Tillman's death because of the uncertainties surrounding the incident. In other words, the general is shown trying to prevent the Army's subsequent mistakes, although since he didn't shout his misgivings from the rooftops Krakauer prefers to interpret the warning as the beginning of a political cover-up.
Fact: After debuting at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list, Krakauer's book has slid to #10, based in part on lukewarm reviews.
Speculation: There is a part of Jon Krakauer that feels he is speaking out for Pat Tillman and his family, who are clearly victims in this affair. There is another part of Jon Krakauer that knows there's money to be made in demolishing public icons. The passion of the first Krakauer rightly earns him the bully pulpit offered by the hosts of programs like Meet the Press and The Daily Show. The second, self-interested Krakauer pushes his argument too far for its own good.
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