Ilan Goldenberg calls me out over this post and he has the goods:
In fact, that’s exactly what they did. Ten minutes after the President’s speech ended yesterday 40 reporters from many of the key mainstream media outlets got on a press call sponsored by the National Security Network with with General John Johns, General Robert Gard, Rand Beers, Larry Korb and Steven Simon (Of the hated Council on Foreign Relations). For over an hour these experts took the time to explain to the press why the President’s comparison to Vietnam was bull.These stories don’t write themselves. There is a reason the speech got trashed yesterday by the media and the clerisy had a great deal to do with that.
I’m afraid a bloggerish tendency toward sarcasm, in-group lingo and a proclivity to write in haste and a degree of anger got the better of me here. I wanted to make a point about Brookings and about Peter Rodman and I should have just made it and not gotten re-entanged in this larger and increasingly vague debate about clerisies. I think the people at the National Security Network do great work and deserve more support and attention.