Ethics

Klingenschmitt Requests Hush Money

By Ed Brayton

Part of the martyrdom mythology that Gordon Klingenschmitt has sought to create about himself is the claim that he nobly sacrificed his military career and his well-earned pension as an officer because he was so resolutely standing up for God and country and the freedom to pray in Jesus' name. The whole thing is a lie, of course; he was not court-martialed or discharged for praying in Jesus' name at all but for disobeying a direct order to comply with military regulations forbidding him to appear in uniform at a political event. A jury of Navy officers convicted him of doing that and the military court ordered a letter of reprimand for it. It was at that point that Klingenschmitt began inventing this mythology about himself. But as Jason Leopold documents, he first tried to get the Navy to pay him off to keep his mouth shut:

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on August 26, 2009 (boomark / email).