1115.org

At a Pentagon news conference yesterday, Army Secretary Pete Geren gave us his official verdict on the Army’s handling of Pat Tillman’s death.

Despite prior leaks that Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger might have his rank reduced — which would have made a significant dent in his retirement benefits — that hasn’t happened yet. Geren has passed that buck to an Army review panel. For now, Kensinger has been rapped on the knuckles censured. Don’t think for a minute that he got off lightly, though:

Geren said he considered recommending a court-martial for Kensinger but ruled it out.

Ooh! Almost court-martialed! Serves him bloody right. And, oh yes, several others also had their knuckles rapped, but more lightly:

At least six other officers received lesser reprimands.

But the part I enjoyed most was when Geren declared that “there was no intentional Pentagon cover-up”.

Media reports don’t exactly explain or otherwise annotate that bewildering statement, so we’re left on our own to try and figure out what Army Secretary Pete Geren thinks actually happened here.

He couldn’t possibly mean that the Army didn’t knowingly misrepresent the truth. Because the simple fact of the matter is that: a) they knew the truth, b) they lied about it for a long, long time.

That leaves us with just one possibility, as far as I can tell: some Buttercheeksian parsing related to the word “intentional”.

The best sense I can make of Geren’s convenient judgement is that although the Army deliberately and knowingly concealed the truth for five weeks, even though the truth was — as it happened — covered up, it still wasn’t an intentional cover-up. See, the intention was merely to exploit Tillman’s death for propaganda purposes. Covering up the truth wasn’t the intention, it was just the means to that end. And that’s why everyone should, in fact, be let off lightly. It was all in a good cause, a noble cause. They told a small lie so that some good might come of Tillman’s death. So that more brave Americans could be inspired to sign up for the cause of truth and justice and democracy and freedom, bringing us victory in our generational struggle against Terror. Tillman, nobody doubts, was a patriot. Tillman would have wanted his death to be used for patriotic purposes. The Army, in its grief over Tillman’s death, simply decided they had an obligation to honor Tillman’s unspoken but self-evident wishes.

That must be what Geren meant. I don’t see what other sense his statement could possibly make.