on C-Span WJ NOW ....has Barton Gellman of the Washington Post on talking about the Pentagon's secert service military intel unit that is trying to replace the CIA and he just said Boykin is in charge of it :scared:
SAVING GENERAL BOYKIN (PART 2)! General Boykin’s oddest remarks have been airbrushed from major newspapers:
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh102803.shtmlTUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2003
GOOD-BYE, MOGADISHU: Yes, it’s true—Lt. General Jerry Boykin seems to hold some unusual beliefs. In speeches to various religious assemblies, Boykin has said that, despite getting fewer votes than Gore, George W. Bush is in the White House because God intervened in his case. More oddly, he thinks that he has taken photos of the sky above Mogadishu which show “a demonic spirit over the city.” “Ladies and gentleman, that’s not a fake, that’s not a farce,” he has said (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 10/27/03).
Do Boykin’s photos really show such a presence? We don’t have the slightest idea how you would settle that question. Nor would Boykin’s views even matter, except for his high position. But alas! Boykin is a deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, with major responsibilities in the War on Terror. William Arkin describes his position in the Los Angeles Times:
ARKIN: In this newly created position, Boykin is not just another Pentagon apparatchik or bureaucratic warrior. He has been charged with reinvigorating Rumsfeld’s “High Value Target Plan” to track down Bin Laden, Hussein, Mullah Omar and other leaders in the terrorism world.
In short, a man charged with evaluating intelligence reports sees “demonic presences” in his own snapshots! Is General Boykin, however decent a person, perhaps a little bit of a nut? You’d almost think that someone would ask—especially if we actually care about those troops to whom we all love to pander.
But few scribes are going to ask that question, whatever the answer might actually be. (We assume that Boykin is a thoroughly decent man, and a thoroughly hard-working soldier.) Indeed, when the mainstream press has discussed this case, reporters have tended to airbrush away the strangest things Boykin has said. Most strikingly, his statements about those snapshots have rarely been mentioned. For example, his statements about the Mogadishu pics have never been mentioned in Washington Post news reports. In the New York Times and USA Today, the general’s statements about Mogadishu have never been mentioned at all. These papers don’t seem to want their readers to know what the general has said.
Yep—Boykin’s statement about that “demonic presence” have largely been airbrushed away. Instead, reporters discuss his political blunders—the fact that he has expressed public views about the War on Terror that fly in the face of Bush policy. But it’s “Good-bye Mogadishu” when it comes to those snapshots—when it comes to his oddest public statements. His kookiest comments get washed away. Less kooky comments get discussed.
Why have Boykin’s oddest statements been airbrushed from the mainstream press? We’ll discuss that point by the end of the week. But meanwhile, in the conservative press, the standard Grievance Tales have been brewing. Standard spinners brew standard complaints about how Boykin is being mistreated. You know the drill: The talk-show right just loves playing victim, and its pseudo-cons are especially good are weeping and wailing and crying big tears. And they’re very good at something else, too—at faking, spinning, dissembling, reinventing. In the past week, they have once again showcased their brilliant skills, reinventing the things Boykin said.
Here at THE HOWLER, we don’t see a demonic presence in the discourse around General Boykin. But we do see the shape of a public discourse whose troubles have grown in the past forty years—and no, it isn’t General Boykin who’s been churning the standard bullroar.
here is what ODD BOYKIN said about the photos:
ODD BOYKINS: We assume that Lt. General Jerry Boykin is a perfectly decent individual. We also assume that he has served in full good faith during his thirty-year military career.
But in recent years, Boykin has said some odd things to a string of religious assemblies. For example, when William Arkin reported on Boykin in the Los Angeles Times, he started with this strange example:
ARKIN (10/16/03): In June of 2002, Jerry Boykin stepped to the pulpit at the First Baptist Church of Broken Arrow, Okla., and described a set of photographs he had taken of Mogadishu, Somalia, from an Army helicopter in 1993.
The photographs were taken shortly after the disastrous “Blackhawk Down” mission had resulted in the death of 18 Americans. When Boykin came home and had them developed, he said, he noticed a strange dark mark over the city. He had an imagery interpreter trained by the military look at the mark. “This is not a blemish on your photograph,” the interpreter told him, “This is real.”
“Ladies and gentleman, this is your enemy,” Boykin said to the congregation as he flashed his pictures on a screen. “It is the principalities of darkness... It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy.”
That evening, CBS’ David Martin played footage of Boykin making this point during another public speech. “Whether you understand it or not, it is a demonic spirit over the city of Mogadishu,” Boykin says on the CBS tape. “Ladies and gentleman, that’s not a fake, that’s not a farce.”
As Arkin said in his piece in the Times, “That’s an unusual message for a high-ranking U.S. military official to deliver.” But Boykin has other unusual views. Every school kid knows that our presidents are not elected by popular vote. But why is President Bush in the White House? Boykin has explained that one too:
ARKIN: He has praised the leadership of President Bush, whom he extolled as “a man who prays in the Oval Office.” “George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters in the United States,” Boykin told an Oregon congregation. “He was appointed by God.”
Why didn’t God just inspire more people to vote for Bush? Most likely, Boykin can tell you.
In recent weeks, Boykin has come under public discussion for other remarks he has made. President Bush has consistently said that the War on Terror is not a Christian war against Islam. But Boykin has made public statements in which he seems to say that Muslims worship a false god—an “idol.” Because Boykin serves as a deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, charged with tracking down terrorist leaders, critics have said that his statements will complicate the War on Terror—making it harder to sustain the claim that the war is not meant as a clash of religions. Indeed, Senator John Warner (R-VA), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, sent Donald Rumsfeld a letter asking for a formal probe into Boykin’s speech-making. Many observers think that Boykin’s comments will cost him his job.
Yes, Boykin has made some unfortunate statements—and he’s made some other statements that just seem a little bit nutty. But the public dispute about Boykin’s statements helps to show the shape of the discourse with which Americans now are saddled. Forty years ago, Americans filed into public theaters and laughed at the oddness of the good Dr. Strangelove. But what happens now when General Boykin shows the splotch above Mogadishu? In part, we see the way forty years of agitation from certain sectors have turned our public discourse on its head.
Yes, General Boykin has a right to his views, and we assume he’s a well-meaning, decent person. But Americans also have some rights—including the right to a sane public discourse. In some ways, Boykin does seem a bit daft. And no one—repeat, no one—dares say so.
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