Deep Pentagon News Today

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Press conference in europe and basically dashed the idea the vice president had of a much leaner operation over there, in particular getting al qaeda, but otherwise staying out of country. he trashed that idea publicly. he was brought in -- his top people -- the top pentagon people were put on the carpet for that. and also you pointed out that this guy always pushes the envelope. he learned it at west point, push as far as you can. it must be somewhere in your editorial thinking, you must know, ...

Sources from the outside and i dont want to pretend these are the deep pentagon sources, but the thing that they said first and foremost was why would he, to your question, why would he not only do the interview but do such an in-depth -- the guy was with him for a month? why would you do that knowing kind of the tact that "rolling stone" takes to articles, a little bit snarkier, a little tongue in cheek. why if you were the head of the american effort in afghanistan would some press person say,...

Reporting and journalism works. its just astounding, the only word that i can think of, piece when you read it. >> yeah. i just have to believe there was some piece of this that were going to get in a couple of days, like this was part of a military effort to reach out to young people, to hit people. how you and i go to the movies and there will be an ad for the military, some way to reach that younger demo and if you go to "rolling stone" youll reach kids who normally dont hear about the milita...

I think whats interesting is weve been getting asked about this all day by journalists. the pentagon and mcchrystals team has not raised this at all once, as far as i know, so theres no question that this story is accurate and complete and fair picture and was done according to the rules. >> lets take it as far as your article wrote. very good at backgrounding this article. pointed out twice before as you said last june mcchrystal got caught or certainly was blamed for leaking a report that said...

And when he was off, that he explained and had explained to him a knowledge of the ground rules so that he, the general, so that he didnt get confused here about when he was on and off? he always knew it? >> absolutely. the understanding was, as it always is in this kind of case that youre on the record at all times unless you make an explicit agreement otherwise in advance that both parties agree to so theres no question or confusion about that at all. >> just to nail it down for journalists an...