Iron curtain

The U.S. Department of Defense should certainly be embarrassed by Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s career-ending derisive remarks about the administration in a controversial Rolling Stone story.

However, Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ new media policy will have a far more negative impact than McChrystal’s display of arrogance.

Gates issued a directive requiring Pentagon clearance for any interviews or other dealings with reporters, which effectively mandates that hundreds of thousands of officers worldwide run interview requests through an office in the Pentagon.

One of Gates’ assistants said no “Iron Curtain” would fall between the media and the military.

That’s simply double-talk. Creating such a cumbersome process will effectively shut down communication between the military’s officers outside of Washington and the American public, which is the ultimate consumer of the media’s product.

While the Department of Defense maintains that the policy was in the works long before McChrystal’s controversial story, Gates’ timing seems far more than coincidental.

The scandal is simply the exposure of one four-star general’s stunningly poor judgment. Stemming the flow of information to the public is not the best way to prevent future embarrassment.

— The Dothan (Ala.) Eagle