Don't expect to see much of author and Boston University history professor Andrew Bacevich on MSNBC anytime soon.
The retired Army colonel was among the "resources and assets" -- Rachel Maddow's euphemism for talking heads -- who appeared on her show after Wednesday's "historic" commander-in-chief forum on NBC featuring the two major party candidates separately taking questions from moderator Matt Lauer and from an audience comprised mainly of veterans.
That the entire proceeding, the forum itself and the "special edition" of Maddow's show that followed, was not to Bacevich's liking was made clear in a scathing op-ed he wrote the following day for the Boston Globe.
You knew it would make for a lively read from the headline alone -- "I was held prisoner on an American aircraft carrier." The previous evening's event, Bacevich complained, was "profoundly disheartening" regardless of the repeated insistence of NBC and MCNBC that what occurred was genuinely "historic."
"Yet in a perverse way," Bacevich wrote," witnessing the event was an illuminating experience, offering a close-up view of the media's role in trivializing American politics."
Bacevich described the specifics of the forum from an attendee's perspective while slamming Hillary Clinton's "seasoned pol's skill at evasion" and the "faith-based nature" of Donald Trump's candidacy. Bacevich also observed that questions from the audience focused less on challenges facing our next commander-in-chief and more on "auditioning (for) someone to head the VA."
Then came this eye-opening segue --
After the forum itself concluded came televised commentary and analysis. I played the role of potted plant on Rachel Maddow's show, also held onboard the Intrepid. More claims of the "historic" nature of the enterprise were heard, but the overall tone shifted. It now became smug, self-congratulatory, and narcissistic. ...
All of this unfolded in an environment that displayed the remarkable technological agility of a modern news operation. The hangar deck where we sat and the flight deck above accommodated multiple temporary sets. Lights, cables, and cameras were everywhere -- not to mention the brightly-lit NBC logo. Video excerpts from the forum itself were seamlessly integrated into follow-on programming. With split-second timing, one host handed off to another. On camera, no one broke a sweat. Off camera, activity was intense but purposeful.
Perhaps the results were entertaining -- I'll leave that for others to judge. But this I know for sure: It was not journalism. It did not inform. And if NBC's forum provides a preview of the upcoming presidential debates, then we're in trouble.
You'd never know from Bacevich's screed, which implies he sat mute on the sidelines, but Maddow did ask his opinion near the end of her show, leading me to wonder if the underlying reason for his complaint is that his voice wasn't heard more.
When Bacevich spoke, it was with obvious irritation as he telegraphed what he would write for the Globe --
MADDOW: I want to turn for a moment to Lt. Colonel Andrew Bacevich. Colonel, one of the things that you have written about is the toll of America's very, very long wars and the distance between civilian experience and understanding and what the military is having, what Rachel (referring to a woman who spoke from the audience) was talking about, this you, they, them, this distance between these two worlds and how unbreachable it is. (Bacevich's son, First Lt. John Andrew Bacevich, was killed in combat in Iraq in 2007). How did you hear that tonight?
BACEVICH: Well, I think the point is a good one, but if I may ...
MADDOW: Please.
BACEVICH: ... make a broader comment about the forum, although it's been, I think, dynamite in terms of focusing attention on veterans' issues, as a discussion of national security issues and the sort of things we want to hear from a prospective commander-in-chief, it's really been a missed opportunity.
MADDOW: Hmm.
BACEVICH: I mean, the questions (the candidates) should have been asked on that score they simply were not asked and a couple of occasions the question was posed, they evaded it. I mean, before we wrap things up tonight (alluding to the show being nearly over) it seems to me to be useful to surface the things that ought to be discussed when we're trying to understand the qualifications of somebody to be commander-in-chief. We didn't hear that.
MADDOW: Being asked for a specific plan on ISIS, for example.
BACEVICH: If I may, to be asked, what have you learned from our unsuccessful wars of the past couple of decades and how would you apply those lessons? How do you feel about the Obama administration's plan to spend a trillion dollars modernizing our nuclear weapons? How do you measure military power in a cyber age? Tell me what your understanding is of the complexities of the Syrian civil war. Those are items that ought to be on a commander-in-chief's agenda and they weren't even asked.
As potted plants go, fairly voluble. Providing he gets plenty of sunlight.
Complicating matters is that Maddow and Bacevich have praised each other's books -- Bacevich with a blurb for Maddow's "Drift," published in 2012, followed by Maddow writing a glowing review in the New York Times of Bacevich's "Breach of Trust" in 2013, a back-scratching arrangement questioned by the Washington Post's Erik Wemple.
In an appearance on Maddow's show in September 2014 to discuss President Obama redeploying troops to Iraq to battle ISIS, Bacevich cited numerous "conditions" as the basis for ISIS's grievances against the West -- "political dysfunction, economic underdevelopment, alienation, failure to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, all of the above -- that's where ISIS comes from." Noticeably absent was any mention of Islamist fervor.
