NOBODY'S perfect, and journalists are no exception. Sometimes members of the media slam a newsmaker unfairly, blowing a "story" way out of proportion. Other times (whoosh!) it goes right over their heads. Such seems the case for a couple of high-profile members of the United States armed forces. The military is in
the media spotlightThe two targets are CINCPAC, Adm. Joseph W. Prueher of Pearl Harbor, and Air Force 1st Lt. Kelly Flinn of Minot Air Force Base, N.D.
Admiral Prueher was the featured speaker at the Rotary Club of Honolulu about two weeks ago. His talk, "Security in the Asia Pacific," was carefully scripted.
At one point in his presentation, however, Prueher addressed the degree of hunger in politically volatile North Korea. He said that the situation couldn't be that bad over there because the U.S. military had noted "a lot of live dogs running around."
The crowd -- of which I was a member -- had no reaction. Obviously, Prueher was citing something that he had read in reports, as opposed to relaying his own personal dig at Koreans who eat dog meat.
The next morning, though, surprise! The "other paper" ran a front-page article strongly insinuating that Prueher had committed an ethnic faux pas.
Then the story got picked up by the Associated Press, which spread its own interpretation of the incident to points around the globe. "The head of U.S. military forces in the Pacific may be in hot water," was the lead sentence, "for a racially insensitive remark made yesterday during a speech about possible starvation in North Korea."
Holy torpedo. The bombing of Prueher made the president of our Rotary club so mad at the press that he wondered whether Adm. Richard Macke was misquoted before taking early retirement as CINCPAC last year.
Highly unlikely. Macke himself apologized for his public reaction to the rape of a Japanese girl in Okinawa. In front of reporters, Macke called the alleged attackers stupid because, for the measly price of a car rental, they could have purchased sex from a prostitute.
It's hard to characterize that kind of remark as anything other than insulting and flippant.
Following in such ill-fated foot steps, Admiral Prueher knows he has to be squeaky clean, even boring, because the media will be monitoring his statements like the CIA. No way would Prueher, in an off-hand way, so cavalierly offend one of the countries under his jurisdiction.
LUCKILY for the admiral, he's not being further persecuted by the press. Neither is 1st Lt. Flinn, the first female to become a B-52 bomber pilot. She was in the headlines, and faced a court-martial and possible imprisonment earlier this week, for charges including adultery, disobedience and lying.
Hard to believe, isn't it? There's got to be something else -- maybe a lot of somethings else -- that the military isn't disclosing about this curious case. If fooling around and lying were indeed bona fide causes for being sent to the slammer, the prisons would be bulging.
Surely the Air Force wouldn't bother permanently ejecting Flinn from her B-52 seat unless she did something truly terrible. OK, journalists, here's the challenge: Now that she's finally got her general discharge (less than an honorable discharge), find out the real reason she was kicked out of the United States armed forces.
Bet it's worse than a comment about dog-eating Koreans. Much worse.