McChrystal Burned by Our 'Culture of Exposure'

Used to be that public figures—politicians and military types, say—could bitch about their bosses in front of reporters, and that stuff would never make it into the story, writes David Brooks. Now it is the story. Stanley McChrystal somehow missed this development, and his "run-of-the-mill complaining" cost him his job, Brooks writes in the New York Times.

"McChrystal, like everyone else, kvetched. And having apparently missed the last 50 years of cultural history, he did so on the record, in front of a reporter. And this reporter, being a product of the culture of exposure, made the kvetching the center of his magazine profile." The rest is history. Expect public officials to "erect erect even higher walls between themselves and the outside world' now.

(More Stanley McChrystal stories.)