re: #170 Killgore Trout

I would have skipped the Rose Garden announcement and issued a press release, private meeting with the family. I would have avoid the “honor and distinction” comments about his service to some much more vague. The only tough call for me would be the comments about his health and threats to his safety if leaked. I suspect those are more political cover for the legal grey area, I don’t blame them for not wanting to notify congress so a little bit of ass covering is to be expected.

You realize that, with the vultures we have in the press, that would have only made things worse, right? Instead of bitching about “honor and distinction,” we’d have bitching that the White House is trying to hide something.

“Why,” they’d ask, “would the President be playing things low-key if they believed Bergdahl’s service was anything but honorable? Is it perhaps because they have access to the results of the first investigation and already know he’s a deserter? That they gave away the ‘worst of the worst’ for a guy who didn’t deserve to come home? Is that why they didn’t let Congress know?”