The journalistic ethos in this country is bankrupt. Hastings is not a “mainstream” reporter because he actually reported the idiocy spouted by his subject rather than being “discreet” in the interest of preserving a source. And in fact that seems what most large media outlet reporters seem to value most — access to sources. They’d prefer this access to the hard work of actual reporting, and so they keep hidden what really matters. And the likes of David Brooks, today, cry that doing otherwise elevates mere “kvetching” it offenses that get generals fired:

By putting the kvetching in the magazine, the reporter essentially took run-of-the-mill complaining and turned it into a direct challenge to presidential authority. He took a successful general and made it impossible for President Obama to retain him.

“The reticent ethos had its flaws. But the exposure ethos, with its relentless emphasis on destroying privacy and exposing impurities, has chased good people from public life, undermined public faith in institutions and elevated the trivial over the important.

“Another scalp is on the wall. Government officials will erect even higher walls between themselves and the outside world. The honest and freewheeling will continue to flee public life, and the cautious and calculating will remain.”