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| Stars & Stripes publishes WAPO hit job on Mike Flynn |
| 2018-12-16 |
| [Stars & Stripes] WASHINGTON ‐ What happened to Michael Flynn? He threw the bullshi* flag, that's what happened to him. Before he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, before he became a folk hero to many of President Donald Trump's most loyal supporters, before he pivoted from accomplished military officer to purveyor of shocking stories about the evils of Islam, something changed in the tough kid who rose to be a three-star Army general. His friends and critics agree that after winning a reputation as a master intelligence officer on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, Flynn broke with lifelong patterns of behavior. Once discreet and apolitical, he morphed into a highly partisan alarm ringer. A man once trusted to cautiously analyze information began touting wild hearsay as fact. Seeing flawed U.S. policy in the ME toss young soldiers into the meat grinder of endless wars will do that to you. Flynn, 60, is expected to be sentenced in federal court Tuesday after having given prosecutors 19 interviews as part of their investigation into the Trump campaign's relationship with Russia. Whatever punishment the court imposes, the mystery of Flynn's transformation endures. More than two dozen of Flynn's friends, superiors and colleagues ‐ including some who see him as a heroic truth teller and others who wonder how he went off the rails ‐ agreed in interviews that Flynn's public persona shifted dramatically. They remain at odds over why it happened. "Friends".... like General Stan McChrystal and Admiral Mike Mullen ? Did he gradually absorb a new, conspiracy-minded worldview, in part inspired by his son Michael Jr.'s embrace of fringe ideas? Did he discard lifelong habits because he'd been enraged to his core when President Barack Obama's administration in 2014 removed him as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), his last and most senior military assignment? Or had Flynn, who retired as a lieutenant general, long harbored extreme views, successfully shielding his real opinions from those around him? Yes, I suppose "Lock her UP" could be characterized as "extreme" if you do not believe in the Rule of Law. Although the explanations vary, the change is undeniable. More follows |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #8 Back in the day, they called it "The Stars and Lies" for a reason. |
| Posted by: Injun Bucket8891 2018-12-16 13:31 |
| #7 His "public persona shifted" -- or did the reporting about him shift? After he disagreed with the Obama administration, was the press enlisted in a coordinated smear campaign, the first run of the machine being used against President Trump? |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2018-12-16 13:20 |
| #6 A soft shoe smear... |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2018-12-16 12:06 |
| #5 Do we know exactly what he was supposed to have lied about? Flynn was an intelligence guy. He would have known (or at least suspected) that any conversation with a Rooski pol would be recorded which would make lying about it pointless. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2018-12-16 10:25 |
| #4 I have heard he caved when they showed him they could and would charge his son if he didn’t. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2018-12-16 10:17 |
| #3 A pre-sentencing Comey-Muller leak to the WAPO ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2018-12-16 07:04 |
| #2 ...The version I've heard is that - as clearly shown in the article - Mike Flynn was very, very, very good. But he started to believe his own legend, and that's where things started to go south for him. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2018-12-16 05:59 |
| #1 Did he gradually absorb a new, conspiracy-minded worldview? Translation: He recognized the existence of the Deep State. In 2010, Flynn jolted the U.S. intelligence community when he co-wrote "Fixing Intel," a paper for a think tank that concluded that the nation's intelligence work in Afghanistan was "ignorant," "incurious," "disengaged," a massive waste of resources. "Merely killing insurgents usually serves to multiply enemies rather than subtract them," the paper said. A very accurate and timely assessment. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2018-12-16 05:53 |