Pentagon’s misshapen war on the press

As we advance towards a more complete mastery of what we can learn from nature, it behooves us to study birds that are known to prefer specific colors and types of vehicles to crap upon.

Politicians also know, as a professional courtesy, where to drop their calling cards while their careers are flying high. So do government officials and cabinet members. It's left to journalists to clean up the poop. 

Minding national security is a heavy lift.

Journalists are the guinea pigs and champions of the First Amendment, whose legitimacy is vindicated when it passes the test of viability. It's the journalists' job, or at least a by-product of it, to sit the exam as our proxies.

Their mission's performances are hailed or denounced, depending on the political predilections of the observer. 

When they get into the realm of interpretation, they soil themselves. They passionately pontificate about others' bias while cloaking their own. They are as protective of dirty secrets, with whose inspirers they are ideologically aligned, as bears in heat. 

Ignorance is prey. But to partisan hunters, the truth is fair game. Rogue journalists should be disarmed of their weapon of poetic license. 

In an ultimatum sent to news outlets, the Pentagon demanded that they agree, by Oct. 15, to abide by new restrictions, or else forfeit their press credentials. The rules include a ban on gathering information that has not been officially approved for release, and that correspondents visiting the Pentagon for interviews or other engagements be escorted by a Department of War designee.

In a rare and isolated instance of common cause, if not solidarity, FOX News, NewsMax and most other conservative media have joined the Associated Press, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, NPR and other progressive and mainstream media, in categorically and emphatically rejecting the stipulations.

It takes a shared existential threat for irreconcilable differences to take a holiday.

The Pentagon stated "legally, the press has no greater right of access than the public," and that it is a privilege that can be withdrawn. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth finds "the press to be very disruptive in terms of world peace and maybe security for our nation. The Press is very dishonest.”

There's plenty of surgical wordsmithing underfoot. And a lot of mystification.

As history bears out, disruption is often essential to the discovery and triumph of justice. "Honesty" has thrown off the yoke of its traditional meaning and now refers merely to gerrymandered ideological precepts to which individuals subscribe because it suits them.

The Pentagon concedes that receiving classified information "is generally protected by the First Amendment and would not, on its own, normally trigger denial, revocation or non-renewal" of credentials. Yet encouraging such information without Pentagon authorization would be a punishable violation of law.

Mandating prior clearance defeats the purpose of free inquiry. Soliciting information, even from confidential informants, is core to investigative reporting and news gathering.

Nonetheless, the government must guard against leaks that can have fatal consequences to people, even when the goal is to undermine policies that it is perceived are harmful to the state.

What then can be authorized? By whom and for what reason? And with whose oversight?

A Pentagon spokesman insists that journalists " are not required to clear stories with us,” and that they "retain robust access to our public affairs offices, the Briefing Room, and the ability to ask questions.... The only change is to our credentialing process.”

What narrow and labyrinthine boundaries must journalists navigate to avoid being charged with intellectual criminal trespass? What presumption of innocence will be applied to inadvertent straying?

Do journalists deserve combat pay for covering the field and being in the line of fire during "lawfare" of which both parties have been guilty?

When journalists find dirt on politicians and others, they often get slapped with the mud of a defamation suit. U.S. senators and members of the House of Representatives have nothing to fear, though, because even when they knowingly did so, they cannot be sued for slander they commit during Congressional debates.

Alex Jones, a loathsome, heartless pseudo-journalist and conspiracy theorist, is on the hook for $1.4 billion, having lost a defamation suit for claiming the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre of 2012 was a hoax. No pity there. 

But the larger issue is the potential for non-standard, unprecedented, disproportional levied penalties. 

Courts and the government are heavily involved in the reprisal business. They have too wide a berth and scope, which can, in other cases, be used, for instance, to stifle whistleblowers. 

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is testy about national security, as we all should be. But we should be a bit leery of his litmus test for patriotism. Such leeriness is itself patriotic.

It would have been fit and proper to execute journalists for leaking D-Day invasion plans, First Amendment pleas be damned. Gorilla Glue won't plug the open pores of treachery.

The Pentagon's new rules may semi-paralyze the press, which is probably slightly shy of the objective. But it can't immobilize their curiosity. NPR reporter Tom Bowman said it "would make us stenographers parroting press releases, not watchdogs holding government officials accountable.”

Hegseth has reportedly not held a briefing for Pentagon reporters for several months. No need, as word got out that we awaken each day to the smell of world peace.

Which nations allow journalists more freedom than we do? Most people would assume it might be Denmark, which has been ranked the "happiest society," due to its egalitarianism. 

I bet you have never heard of "foraeldrekompetenceundersogelse."

That's the Danish Authority of Social Services and Housing's psychometric assessment, which prophetically evaluates the competence and worthiness of pregnant women to be parents. Even in the absence of any history of abuse or gross irresponsibility, the government may remove newborns within hours of being born and consign them to foster adoption.

By far, the women most victimized by this barbaric practice have been indigenous people from Greenland, the former colony which now has home-rule autonomy within Denmark. The International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs confirms the criteria for separation "reflect a Eurocentric perspective on parenting.”

President Trump's forewarning that an American takeover of Greenland was an "absolute necessity" was viewed as a bad joke and omen of international law violations, but it was generally praised by the Inuit community in Denmark, which credits Trump for putting Denmark's feet to the fire and melting away some of their harsher, culture-averse habits.

The Guardian reported one not atypical case of a doctor in Denmark, operating within guidelines, notifying a mother-to-be during her eighth-month sonogram, that her child would be seized from her at birth and, in effect, reassigned.

The New York Times reported last month that Danish and Greenlandic researchers released a scathing 347-page report detailing the Danish government's former scheme of forcing contraception "on a whole generation of Greenlandic women and girls, some as young as 12 and many kept in the dark about what was being done to them."

One Greenlandic woman was told that she was being tested to see if she was "civilized enough.” The tests, according to The Guardian, cover "personality traits, cognitive capabilities and psychopathology."

One sample question was "What is glass made of?" Try that on a random college provost.

It's also been alleged that not in the distant past, Denmark coercively sterilized Inuit women and inflicted "psychological trauma and social marginalization" on them.

Nothing comparable exists any longer in the U.S., but within living memory, minority groups were targeted here for severely disabling physical trauma and psychic experimentation. Times and attitudes have changed, but much of it was enabled and powered by dogged and daredevil journalists.

Journalists must sometimes shield us from the gamma rays of governmental overreach. They are prophylactics against kings.

Red and Blue.