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My best guess is that it is a combination of dullness, cowardice and careerism that accounts for Myers' behavior - then and now. And, with those attributes and propensities firmly in place, falling in with bad companions, as Richard Myers did, can really do you in.
As we said our good-byes Tuesday evening, one of my alumni colleagues lamented my "ugly" behavior, although it was no more ugly than it was on May 4, 2006, during my four-minute debate with Donald Rumsfeld in Atlanta. (Sadly, my encounter with Myers was not broadcast live on TV.)
A Plaudit From the Press
In attendance was a reporter from the Washington Post, but his note-taking was confined to computing whether he should take the Post's buyout, or try to hang around for the newspaper's inevitable funeral in a couple of years. (So don't bother looking for a print story on the Myers event.)Â As we departed, the Post-man gave me what he seemed to think was the ultimate compliment - I should have been a journalist, he said.
I told him thanks just the same - that my experience has been that, unless they promise not to ask "ugly" questions and keep that promise, journalists of the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) are not permitted to stay around long enough to qualify for a meager 401k - much less an eventual buyout.
At least I was consistent, retaining with such groups an unblemished winning-no-friends-and-influencing-no-people record, originally set three years ago when I had a chance to ask an "ugly" question or two of Donald Rumsfeld.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
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