Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.
Updated and corrected. Democratic Senate hopeful John Walsh is back in the news, and not in a good way. Mike Dennison (not Charlie Johnson, as I wrote initially) of the Lee Newspapers reports that unlike most Montana National Guard adjutant generals, he was not promoted to brigadier or major general in the U.S. Army upon retiring from the guard.
The reason? That inspector general’s finding that Walsh used his Army email account for personal gain when he urged officers to join an organization that lobbies for better equipment and funding for the Guard. It was an anal retentive finding on the order of a parking violation, but it had consequences reports Johnson:
[The Montana Television Network] reported on Friday that Walsh received a formal reprimand signed by Gen. Peter Chiarelli, vice chief of staff of the Army. The memorandum said it did not constitute “punishment,” MTN reported, but Chiarelli said Walsh’s action “causes me to question your ability to lead.”
Those words killed Walsh’s chances for promotion, and probably killed his military career. That may not be punishment in the Army’s book, but it is in mine. And it almost certainly was the goal of the Guard officer who lodged the complaint against Walsh.
This revelation embarrasses Walsh. Whether it hurts him, and if so, how much and for how long, remains to be seen. But I expect that quote from Chiarelli will hound Walsh for the rest of the campaign.
We still don’t know who steered the news media to the inspector general’s report and Walsh’s lost opportunity for stars on his shoulders. Apart from Walsh, the circle of those privy to the report and lost promotion was fairly small: the complaining officer; the inspector general’s office; Chiarelli’s office; and Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s office, which included Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger, now one of Walsh’s rivals in the Democratic primary. Just to be clear, I’m not pointing a finger at Bohlinger. I suspect the report was leaked to Republican operatives by the banana republic officer who complained about Walsh, and that those operatives brought the information to the attention of the news media.
Correction, 21 January. The struck through paragraph above is wrong. The reprimand was unearthed by the Montana Television Network through a Freedom of Information Act inquiry. The Walsh lost his star story in the Missoulian was written by Mike Dennison, not Charlie Johnson. Dennison reports he was stonewalled by the National Guard but that Walsh talked openly when asked about the reprimand’s consequences. My thanks to Dennison for making this correction possible. And my apologies to Dennison and my readers for not getting things right in the first place.
Walsh, incidentally, still doesn’t have a website worthy of a campaign for the U.S. Senate. It’s still a one-pager with a photo of Walsh with his head in the clouds that asks visitors for their contact information and money. And that’s all it does. It’s an egregious abdication of Walsh’s responsibility to present the voters with his stands on the issues.