Gen. Petraeus' Spokesman Denies Sending Angry Email -- Plot Thickens

[babylonsister]

Gen. Petraeus' Spokesman Denies Sending Angry Email -- Plot Thickens

A critical email allegedly sent by a top U.S. military spokesman to a leading blogger this past weekend is starting to draw mainstream attention. But the colonel had sent an equally hot note to E&P in May defending the general -- without reading the report in question.

By Greg Mitchell

NEW YORK (October 29, 2007) -- A disturbing email allegedly sent by a top U.S. military spokesman to a leading blogger at Salon.com this past weekend is just starting to draw mainstream attention. Howard Kurtz at The Washington Post mentioned it today, for example. It requires a good deal of background information to fully appreciate it, so I will provide a link to Glenn Greenwald’s blog page at Salon where he offered extensive postings (and updates) Sunday and today about the email purportedly from Army Col. Steven Boylan.

But E&P has its own correspondence from Boylan, and I want to focus on that.

The long and short of the Greenwald postings: For months the popular blogger -- a former attorney and author of the recent bestseller "A Tragic Legacy" -- has criticized the growing “politicization” of the military attached to Iraq, starting earlier this year and peaking around the appearance of Gen. David Petraeus before Congress (and the media) in September. This was even before William Safire declared, this past weekend, that the general ought to be considered as a running mate for a Republican candidate for president next year.

Several months ago, Greenwald had received, and printed, emails from Boylan, a public affairs officer and chief spokesman for Gen. Petraeus, denying this trend and/or defending the general. So when he received an angry email from Boylan on Sunday, he posted much of it on his blog (and linked to the entire message), while asserting that the views and language in it proved his point about “politicization.”

Then it got really interesting. Boylan in another note to Greenwald seemed to deny that he wrote the email, while denouncing Greenwald for publishing it. But he did not state this clearly and refused to respond to Greenwald’s subsequent request for clarity. Meanwhile, various purported computer experts compared past and present emails from Boylan to Greenwald and suggested (to the latter) that they did seem to come from the same military email address overseas.

No one was certain, but further probing in this realm is now underway. At the least, it raised troubling questions about someone "hijacking" the email account of Gen. Petraeus's chief spokesman.

more...

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003664994

[LiberalFighter]

1. Me thinks that Petraeus hijacked his own spokesman's email account.

If not, it might suggest that Boylan doesn't secure his military email account and he might be a national security risk.

[JeffR]

2. Thanks for the update

I used to read Greenwald every day before he moved to Salon, and I think he's been one of the best anti-Bush voices around. This is a weird story unfolding here, one to keep an eye on.

[Solly Mack]

3. K/R

bookmarked