I was alerted to the story by Mark A. R. Kleiman's blog. Jeffrey Kofman had done a story for ABC News' "World News Tonight," reporting on a number of soldiers who are upset over having been Iraq so long and over repeatedly broken promises to bring them home.
This seems to have infuriated a number of people in the administration - so much so, in fact, that some of the officers who allowed the soldiers to speak may lose their careers. This is understandable because it is technically illegal for soldiers to criticize the civilian leadership in this manner (I say "technically" because it doesn't appear as though this law was enforced much while Bill Clinton was president).
Aside from whatever fate those officers may suffer, the other major reaction of the White House was to let "cyber-gossip" Matt Drudge know in no uncertain terms just where this story came from: Kofman is not only openly gay, he's (gasp) Canadian! Is this simply an effort by the administration to "repair some of the damage it had previously done both to gay rights and to US-Candadian relationships, by giving credit where it was due for a fine piece of journalistic work," or was it an attempt to appeal to "homophobia and jingoism?"
It is curious that after all of this broke, a commanding officer of the 3rd Infantry Division which Kofman reports from had just one question for the reporter: "Is it true that you're Canadian?" A military officer showing greater concern over Kofman's citizenship than over his sexual orientation... I really don't know if that is a sign of progress or not. But it is interesting.
Read More:
- Genetic Fallacy (the ad hominem fallacy implicitly used by focusing upon Kofman's sexual orientation and citizenship)