Seriously now, is there any reason why Senator McCranky should be taken seriously about military matters -- or anything else?

Is Young Johnny McCranky explaining to NY Senators Gillibrand and Schumer about his superior background and experience?

"The strongest argument for Senator Gillibrand's approach [to curbing sexual abuse in the military] is that the military's been saying the right things for about thirty years on this, and the problem hasn't been fixed."

-- Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), quoted by
The New Yorker's Evan Osnos

by Ken

One of the many reasons I'm grateful for Paul Krugman's years of intrepid op-ed service is his ongoing crusade against the concept of "seriousness" as applied to allegedly serious people in government and its support systems, the technocracy and the media. It is, of course, mutually reinforcing: The pundits anoint "serious" pols and bureaucratic stooges, who in turn bless the seriousness of their media brethren. And if you attempt to find out why any one of these people should actually be taken seriously, it always turns out to be because other "serious" people say so.

Which brings me to the impossible case of Arizona Sen. Young John McCranky, who somehow developed a reputation for "integrity" based on pretty much nothing and to go with it a legend of expertise in subjects for no more apparent reason than his long-standing membership in the Insiders' Boys' Club. I'm the toughness and endurance he demonstrated during his Vietnam POW captivity, there's nothing of distinction in his personal record, allowing for the likely boosts it got from his family naval history. And in his post-military years, has he done anything to qualify himself as an expert beyond playing buddy-buddy with the reigning powers-that-be? And in the military, perhaps even more than in many other institutions, though it applies to most of them too, the powers-that-be are notably mostly for an unshakable conviction that their way of doing things is one true right and proper way to do things.

I go into this with reference to the Crankyman's guest appearance in Evan Osnos's recent New Yorker profile of New York's junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand ("Strong Vanilla," Dec. 16; only an abstract available free online). Probably everyone recalls that one cause the senator has made personal is doing something about the frightening growth in incidences of sexual assault in the military, and the military's singularly low interest in doing anything about it -- like, you know, investigating and prosecuting reported incidences, which presumably has led to an equally striking growth in unreported incidences, given the significantly greater likelihood that the victim will pay a substantially higher price than the perpetrator. The indications are that the worse the problem grows, the less inclination the military shows to do anything about it.

It's hardly a new thought that there's a built-in conflict of interest in the military's reliance on chain of command, when decisions about investigations and prosecutions are made by people who have an institutional, or often even personal, reason to look the other way. Which led Senator Gillibrand to craft her proposal that this authority be switched from the relevant military commander to professional military prosecutors.

Here's Evan Osnos quoting Young Johnny touting his own expertise:

Gillibrand has proposed a radical solution. Commanders have always had the power to decide which sexual-assault cases to try; she would give that power to military prosecutors instead. The Pentagon has warned that the move would undermine commanders' authority, and many senators agree. One of them is John McCain, of Arizona, a Navy veteran. He told reporters, "I respect Senator Gillibrand's view and her advocacy, but I do not believe that she has the background or experience on this issue. I do."

One senator whose support Gillibrand has secured is Kentucky's libertarian Rand Paul. Now I don't have much truck with those on the left who imagine that we have much common ground with the libertarian right, but there are unquestionably issues where libertarians "get it right" while a lot of folks in the famous "center" and "left of center" don't. The way I look at it is, if even the libertarians in their crackpot ideology can get it right, how difficult can it be to understand?

More from Evan Osnos:

When Gillibrand asked Rand Paul for his vote, he asked her to change some language to clarify which crimes are covered. Then he signed on. Paul told me that his coöperation with Gillibrand is "an argument for having new fresh faces around," and he added, "The strongest argument for Senator Gillibrand's approach is that the military's been saying the right things for about thirty years on this, and the problem hasn't been fixed."

Not only hasn't the problem been fixed, it has grown significantly worse -- and on the political side, that's notwithstanding the "background" and "experience" of Young Johnny McCranky. I don't doubt that Young Johnny has done way more background and experience in drinking with his military pals than has Senator Gillibrand, but in the matter of curbing sexual abuse, it might help if, instead of bragging about his background and experience, he told us how he and his drinking buddies propose finally to get a handle on the problem.


THERE COULD BE ANOTHER POSSIBILITY --

Maybe it isn't necessarily that Young Johnny and his pals are fools or incompetents. Maybe they just don't see sexual abuse as a problem.

It's folk wisdom that in war behavior which would be intolerable in any other walk of life is not only tolerated but perhaps encouraged. When we hear accounts of our supposedly elite military squads in Afghanistan, we get a window into a culture of hyper-manly-manness which always leaves me feeling more than a little queasy.

What if Young Johnny and his drinking buddies are firm believers in the notion that "boys will be boys," and what's more, the best fighters are thoseeled by the hightest-octane testosterone. Sure, their behavior may overstep the prissy limits of polite society, but our national security depends on their manly-mannish ability to rise to whatever level of manliness situations may require.

Would it be scurrilous to sugggest that we have a military command, and a corps of political protectors, who believe that sexual assault is just part of the price we pay to keep America, you know, American?

#