The Boylan-Greewald saga is very strange indeed. It seems any trace of professioalism in the military has been replaced by partisanship in the last few years.

My only solace is this www.tshirtinsurgency.com

As I look out over the vast expance of my playground(the front yard, 91 acres), I see ENDLESS piles of horseshit(I'll soon be needing to do something about that). ONE MORE seems hardly worth the effort to notice.

There is a fairly unreasonable amount of fair mindedness involved here in giving Boylan the benefit of the doubt, even if it's just pro forma.

Does anyone really think that someone would infiltrate the military email system just to pretend to be an asshole Colonel -- and who has expertly demonstrated said propensity for assholeness previously? Do you think those email systems aren't some of the most watched and protected systems in the world?

I mean, Come ON!!!! This defies credulity.

PS: Here's a picture of the Col. I was just wondering what he was about. Yes, I can see him now, as an important cog in the Petraeus administration.

It's unfortunate, perhaps, that everyone is focued on Greenwald and Boylan instead of the bigger picture. Sure, Boylan's got some issues and, yeah, he should be removed from his post but take a look at, say, http://www.mnf-iraq.com/ and you'll see the issues are larger than just Boylan. The new Pentagon Iraq PR department is, um, pretty aggresive and run like a pro-Bush right wing blog on wheels with lipstick. Check out the videos, for example. I'm sure we are making friends with those videos. The whole mess, once you start looking closely, is breathtaking. It's like the turned over the Pentagon PR shop to the brains at Powerline.

It's unfortunate, perhaps, that everyone is focued on Greenwald and Boylan instead of the bigger picture. Sure, Boylan's got some issues and, yeah, he should be removed from his post but take a look at, say, http://www.mnf-iraq.com/ and you'll see the issues are larger than just Boylan. The new Pentagon Iraq PR department is, um, pretty aggresive and run like a pro-Bush right wing blog on wheels with lipstick. Check out the videos, for example. I'm sure we are making friends with those videos. The whole mess, once you start looking closely, is breathtaking. It's like the turned over the Pentagon PR shop to the brains at Powerline.

this is a military crew that believes permanent occupation is a key to maintaining peace. they're gonna do whatever they need to do to stay and they're gonna treat anybody against the occupation as ignorant and dangerous. that lines them up with fox and friends but it's actually not the same.

@anon: Greenwald's focused on the larger issue. It's his posts on the larger issue that brought on Boylan's attack to begin with. But there's nothing wrong with focusing on an incident when it illustrates so vividly the underlying issue.

Someone should clue in Boylan's friends and compatriots:
Friends don't let friends drink and type!

I have not dug into this story but I have a bit of valuable context. Here's an excerpt from a letter Boylan sent to Kevin Drum, who reposted it on his blog. Kevin had posted reporting by Andrea Mitchell that Petraeus had privately promised Republicans good news by August.

"Response: If you go back you will see that Andrea Mitchell corrected her mistake as Gen Petraeus did not address the Republican caucus. This was in March of this year and it was an open session to both sides of the aisle and in fact, there were members of the Democratic party in attendance. This was at the request of the Department of Defense to provide an update to leading members of Congress (all sides). Gen Petraeus never said that he will have "real progress to you by August." He did say that the earliest he could determine if there was any progress and a potential for success would be late summer or early fall. The reason for that was that he would not have all the surge forces in place until mid-June and it would take a minimum of 90-days or more to get an indication of the effects the surge was having. You also need to know that Mitchell was not in attendance.

Hope this helps to clarify what is in error in your article and thereby may change the tone and charecterization as well.

Best always and please feel free to contact me at any time to fact check the open sources as needed.

Steve

STEVEN A. BOYLAN
Colonel, US Army
Public Affairs Officer to the
Commanding General
Multi-National Force-Iraq
Baghdad, Iraq

Clearly these two letters were not written by the same person, or else Boylan has a very severe drinking problem, or else I am bad at judging people who are able to produce reasonable-sounding, cogent replies to things.

Clearly these two letters were not written by the same person, or else Boylan has a very severe drinking problem, or else I am bad at judging people who are able to produce reasonable-sounding, cogent replies to things.

Really? Because Greg Mitchell and Drum both thought there was a particular writing style involved. Aside from all the trouble of someone framing Boylan with the email message headers.

U.S. Army Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, director of the force's combined press center, described the number as an "artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives."

IME, being disoriented due to the lack of sleep, stress, or shortage of nookie can cause similarly emotional outbursts, snippiness and letting down of the guard. Greenwald is quite effective at poking with a sharp stick; it must hurt and distress them severely to have lost control of the message.

But I'm not saying that alcohol wasn't involved; only that there may be other explanations.

I wonder how many other e-mails Boylan has exchanged with Drum? Based on what I've read (these two e-mails, and now, the ones Greenwald posted), I don't see the similarity. Although I might be able to draw a line of gradually-decreasing-inhibition through those two letters if I put this one in the middle:

I am interested in this issue. What I am doing about it does not concern you. Interesting is what I find it.

Whether I agree with what the email says or not is not an issue I wish to discuss with you, as I decided after our last exchange that I would not take the time or efforts to engage with you.

Is there a reason why you posted this?

But that's a short step from the writing style in the Drum letter (keep the semiformal language, lose the respectfulness) and a longer step from the thoughtless foaming at the mouth in the Greenwald letter.

Wait a second, I am an idiot. I failed to realize that the excerpt in Jon's post was not the actual text of Boylan's letter. This was my first exposure to the issue as I don't read Greenwald. And since the letter sounds like typical unsolicited hate mail, and I had been primed for a "bizarre" e-mail "sounding exactly like a right wing blog," I read it as a direct quote.

From today:

...and, more importantly, expresses those viewpoints using the same unique and recognizable style of "English" used to write the disputed email.

It must be hell for a "communication" expert like Boylan to have Greenwald, a lawyer, untrained in the art of logic, and with a poor command of the language, place quotes around English for him.

To have greatness thrust upon him (by association with Petreaus and the crusade) and then taken away with this episode is an unkind cut.

With all the attention paid to Beauchamp last month, I'd hope that Greenwald keeps the attention focused so that we can compare and contrast the two episodes.

PS: I guess it hasn't been a good day for the administration's communication experts all around. Damn those internets!