2Slick has comments about the Q&A session with Donald Rumsfeld yesterday; read his account to understand how dishonest the media spin really is.

As you know, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld came here for a visit yesterday. The news agencies (all of them- even Fox) have already spun the visit way out of control.

I just watched a “Fox Live” update (it’s 1:36 am EDT as I type this- 9:36 am Kuwait time), and the anchor started with “what was supposed to be a friendly question and answer session turned into a tough grilling for Donald Rumsfeld…” -this is not a true statement.

I saw another report that indicated that the SECDEF “was slated to give a pep talk” but that it “devolved into a gripe session.” -not true.

I’ve been sitting through briefings about this visit for the past 6 days- in every case, this visit was billed as a “town hall meeting” in which the SECDEF would open the floor to questions and answer them to the best of his ability- never saw anything that suggested it was supposed to be “friendly” or “peppy.” This is nothing new- it’s actually something that SECDEF’s have been doing for years. When I was a VIP Flight Platoon Leader in Seoul, I picked up Secretary of Defense William Cohen at Osan Airbase, flew him to Seoul Airbase, and watched in stunned disbelief as one of my soldiers asked him why the Clinton Administration thought it was a good idea to keep downsizing the military when deployments like Somalia and the Balkans were “on the up and up.” More about that later.

The only thing unusual about this particular “town hall meeting” was the fact that the press was invited. My coworkers and I wondered aloud about the wisdom of this decision, and I still can’t really see the logic there. The only thing I can think of is that the SECDEF intended to show that he has nothing to hide- sort of like a “full public disclosure” kind of thing. The problem with this is obvious. When the cameras are rolling and a soldier stands up and asks why the military isn’t doing anything to properly equip him for war, guess what happens? That’s right- the media machine immediately establishes a new “truth”- in this case it’s that the military is not equipping the force. Absolutely no effort is made to fact-check the soldier- his word is taken as pure gospel. Politicians on Capitol Hill start ranting and raving, the pundits weigh in, and the opposition party gleefully waves the “I told you so” banner. All because of one question from a hard-working well-meaning lower enlisted soldier.

SPC Wilson is one of those soldiers who likes to take shots at authority figures. His ex-wife said of him- “It wouldn’t matter if it was Bush himself standing there. He would have dissed him the same.” This does not mean he’s a bad soldier. It does mean that he’s probably not a good choice to be an Army spokesperson, which is exactly what he became yesterday. As I mentioned earlier, I had a soldier like him working for me in Korea- the guy who unloaded on SECDEF Cohen for downsizing. I thought it was a fair question- I just wish he would have run his question by me before asking my boss’s boss’s boss’s boss. We had a talk about it- my policy was not unusual, and he was well aware of it- if you have a gripe, ask me about it. If you don’t like my answer, then go to the next level. If you feel uncomfortable talking to me, then fine- talk to my boss. Of course he didn’t feel uncomfortable talking to me (I’m a pretty nice guy), he just said, “Sorry, Sir- I really don’t like the Clintonians. I had an opportunity shot and I took it.”

I’m not saying that SPC Wilson has an anti-Bush agenda or anything like that- I think he was probably frustrated about things he either didn’t understand or didn’t agree with, and just wanted to take a shot.

As it turned out, it was worse than 2Slick surmised; SPC Wilson was coached by a journalist to ask that question.