NBC News has yet to respond to David Barstow's front-page NYT story about its military analyst Barry McCaffrey's myriad conflicts of interest. Maybe that's because it figures it can outsource the job to idiots like New York Post columnist Ralph Peters, who pens a lengthy defense of McCaffrey that begins:
WHEN New York Times "investigative reporter" David Barstow was in kindergarten, a young Army officer lay in a hospital bed recovering from one of the three grievous wounds he would suffer in the course of four combat tours in our nation's service.
Barstow never felt compelled to serve his country in any capacity. Instead, he dedicated his life to that godlike calling, journalism, in which those who never actually do anything are empowered to attack those who get things done.
Peters's column goes downhill from there. It's bad enough that NBC won't even deign to respond to a major NYT piece that raises legitimate--and troubling--questions about the network's news operation. It's even worse that, in the absence of that response, McCaffrey's and NBC News's defenders have decided to attack journalism in general.
--Jason Zengerle