'Obama's Wars': The gang that couldn't shoot straight -- or shut up

WASHINGTON POST, 9/30/2010 by Eliot A. Cohen (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) - Senior Washington officials, in this administration or its predecessors, talk to Bob Woodward for all kinds of reasons -- to fluff up their vanity, to avenge slights, to neutralize rivals, to gratify egos or, most laughably, to shape the historical record. Their bosses may even instruct them to blab. But the leakers do not control their audiences, and the following fictional interior monologues, as plausible as any recorded by the author of "Obama's Wars," suggest some of the unintended consequences that may result. Read more at Washington Post...

Eliot A. Cohen is a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University and the author of "Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen and Leadership in Wartime."