This is the kind of book that makes (or should make) a reader think about the subject matter, the style and the conclusion from a lot of different perspectives.
I've finished and reviewed Michael Hastings "The Operators" and it's a scene-filled, fact-filled takedown of pretty much everyone he met during his reporting for the story "The Runaway General," about General Stanley McChrystal, which appeared in the Rolling Stone. Unlike journalists who work to protect sources or leave out details to ensure access later, Hastings doesn't seem to have any interest in returning to this story again, or ever again speaking to any of those he talked with.
His story gives an excellent look at the inner workings of an "embed" with a high-level command. He doesn't have total access, but he has good access. To those who wondered why on earth McChrystal would allow an embed by Rolling Stone, Hastings explains how it makes perfect sense - McC had already been featured in The Atlantic, Time and other publications, so of course he and his team would want to make a mark in 'popular culture' as well. It's unlikely that it was McC's idea, and it probably came from his staff public affairs officer, but they knew what they wanted.
And, the competition between McC and Gen. David Petraeus was fairly intense, albeit under the radar. So it's no surprise that McC would want to one-up his wartime superior - that's what world-class competitors do, and McC's team was not interested in losing.
The controversial banter about the Obama administration from McC's team - appropriate or not - is no different than what you hear around any dinner table or barroom. They are highly critical of everyone above them - but notably, they are never critical (at least that Hastings provides) of anyone below them. Their open disdain is reserved for their bosses, or at least their lateral "co-workers" like Richard Holbrooke, for example.
The book will be reviewed by any number of audiences with preconceived opinions.
There is a set of people who view what Hastings wrote as an attack on the military, which it isn't. Or, that he betrayed his source's confidence, which he didn't - they had to have known he was recording and writing notes. That's what a reporter does, after all, didn't they know it? Or they thought the same relationship that always works would work again - you hang out, you have some late night conversations, you trade stories and you bond...and when the writing's being done, then the reporter should know what to leave in, what to leave out.
It's always worked, so why didn't it work now? I'm sure Duncan Boothby, McC's PAO, wondered that when he was resigning.
It didn't work, because Hastings is not Bob Woodward - he's not protecting access by protecting the bridge against enemies from either side. He's burning the bridge with everyone, including him, on it.
Hastings shows this in a section where he presents a blistering critque of war reporters in general. He writes, "They...are invested in being war correspondents. They are invested in the myth of it. They wake up every day and they buff their armor. They make it nice and shiny."
Who can say otherwise? My Facebook profile is a picture of me in Iraq, trying to look tough underneath a Kevlar on the roof of a dangerous JSS; this whole page is devoted to trips that ended two years ago. Who's he talking to, if not me? But, I also didn't have the luxury of Rolling Stone expense accounts or insurance or guaranteed publication.
Still, it's an insult, and even if it's not directed at me personally, it could be. So I imagine all the other reporters - like Dexter Filkins, who Hastings has a strange contempt for, or Lara Logan of CBS, whose post-RS article attack on Hastings was that he never served the country like McC had (and she made that attack before this book) - who will read this won't have much to say to him afterwards - or they shouldn't, unless they're hypocrites, thick-skinned, or simply apathetic to slings and arrows.
I can't imagine that I would like Hastings. I bet if I met him at some event and tried to talk about shared experiences, like I've tepidly done with Sebastian Junger and Dexter Filkins, Hastings would high-hat me, nod a few times, make an innocuous comment or two and then walk away to a bigger fish. He's casting bait for people like McChrystal, not meaningless small talk with the rest of the world.
But that enables him to do his job better than most. You can't be a reporter of national stories like this, and care about the people too. Unlike Bob Woodward, who has become DC's best court stenographer the last few years, Hastings spares no details and is not worried about the next story. His analysis is the conclusion.
And there will absolutely be a next story from Hastings, not from Afghanistan maybe, but from somewhere. In the days ahead, there will be the usual harrumphing about how Hastings "blew his chance, and nobody will trust him, and sources will never talk to him now."
Spare me - they'll line up to talk to him, because the challenge works both ways. The source wants to talk, they always want to talk, and Hastings will always be there to listen. But the source - whoever it is - wants to believe that this time they and Hastings are on the same team, that this time, Hastings is a friend. "I can be the guy that Hastings uses as his hero," the source will tell themselves.
And then they're going to read the story or book or whatever, and they're going to say to themselves, "wait, he told the truth! I didn't know he was going to do that!"
So, screw the source. They should have known better.
But, I wouldn't do that, and that's where Hastings and I no doubt differ. I'm pleased that the soldiers that have read my own book have said it's honest and tells the truth, even when it was negative - but I wonder if that meant I was too soft on them? Not critical enough? Did I drink the Kool-Aid?
I thought about what I left out, in my own manuscript - I left out the soldier who laughed and pumped his fist, and said "get him," when a convoy carrying an unpopular senior officer was hit by an IED. There was no humor in it - he wanted the guy to get killed. But what's the context for an anecdote like that? How does it fit in, and what does it prove?
Those are questions I'm not sure Hastings always has an answer for. A lot of the conversations that he relates are just that - conversations. Do they really matter? Do they convey some larger truth? The mere fact that people are talking in the same room does not make it news or newsworthy, even with the subject matter in this case. It's not to Obama's credit that McC was fired for what amounted to a midnight conversation at the barracks - but when you're a four-star general, those public conversations are a luxury one loses.
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