McChrystal: Post-Vietnam Political Press
David Brooks, New York Times | June 28, 2010
General McChrystal’s ouster reveals a problem in political culture post-Vietnam: “the exposure ethos…has chased good people from public life [and] undermined public faith in institutions.” ++ Kvetching within bureaucratic structures serves social bonding against “the many morons all around.” ++ General McChrystal “missed the last 50 years of cultural history” by doing so in public. ++ The press must renounce this “exposure culture,” lest “the honest and freewheeling will continue to flee public life, and the cautious and calculating will remain.”
