Digging a Hole to China

This is Admiral Bates speaking. I am trying to get a hold of Chief Springboard. Is he about?

Jordan Tate: He's in a gunfight right now. I'm gonna have to take a message.

That is one of many examples of the hilarious commentary happening over at Springboards, but if you haven't been following it, it can be described as the a blogger who stepped in "it" with the online naval community.

Somehow Springboard has convinced the SailorBob community he is a retired master chief, which I know for fact he is not (I am uncertain if he was ever even in the Navy, he refuses to answer repeated questions), and Springboard has drawn criticism for calling into question the capacity of specific naval officers to command. Now fully into week 2, it has been entertaining to watch, with some comments being laugh out loud funny, and an interesting contrast regarding how some see bloggers in the military space when compared to the continued reaction of Lt G.

I'm breaking my self imposed silence on the Springboard subject to highlight that the CHINFO folks ran one of his posts today in their CLIPS email news. We do not know if the Navy Office of Information folks are fully caught up on the siege by the naval community of Springboards blog (for the purpose of defending one their own), but it doesn't really matter if they are caught up or not. Does anyone else find it disturbing that the Navy Office of Information would think this type of commentary is important enough, relevant enough, or representative of liberal blogging in general to push out the door?

These days, you never know who might be making appointments with Congressional representatives.

Who knows what certain people of a liberal disposition might be chatting about? The LCS? The DDG-1000? Boosting the shipbuilding budget? Delivering a robust, pro-Navy, pro-Marine message?

It would be an awfully rare thing for a Democratic Congress to hear staunch pro-Navy stuff from liberal constituents, eh? Might be a valuable thing to have in the coming months and years, no?

Springboard is being completely self serving in his point here, forwarding the position he represents the entire liberal side of politics discussing the Navy, and with a title like Before You Troll Again..., he is essentially threatening the people posting comments on his blog not to mess with him, or he will call his Congressman or Senator. He also suggesting that he is a powerful service for the Navy to be utilized to influence liberal politicians.

Springboard goes on to make these comments, which I read the premise to be "the navy's officer community lacks professionalism on the internet."

But...with all these trolls running about, vexed liberal people might also just be forced to unburden their concerns about naval professionalism and discuss with Senate aides the failure of the Navy to instill within the ranks an appropriate appreciation for maintaining the highest levels of professional conduct when interacting with the taxpaying public and the blogosphere.

Lord knows the public now has plenty of very interesting...and rather pungent examples.

In other words, printed in a vacuum like CHINFO this post is making the point that the Navy officer community that has engaged the blogosphere are trolls advertising "plenty" of "pungent" examples that lack professionalism. Really? Where? Springboard then goes on to discuss the blogosphere and adds the suggestion...

There are some big, systemic problems looming in the way some in the Navy have decided to interact with the internet. The precedent being set is, in certain semi-official quarters, ugly, undiplomatic and decidedly-un Navylike.

With this point Springboard is at worst attacking any officer in the Navy who posts here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, or anywhere else, and at most attacking the authors who serve in the Navy blogging on those sites. My point isn't to analyze the delusion of Springboard, I shouldn't need to say a thing, my question is why in the world would CHINFO reprint a self serving hit job on the naval officer corps that is completely absent any substance?

Why is the Navy Office of Information distributing Springboard's criticisms of Naval officers who engage online, an opinion that makes broad claims while failing to include even a single anecdotal example, and in context of the last ten days, or worse by itself in CLIPS, is at least an opinion that insults the vast majority of naval officers engaging the blogosphere, and at most an insult to anyone serving in the navy who blogs. CHINFO is still working through the process of finding where blogging fits in their service, but had someone written an editorial in a newspaper that claimed the majority of naval officers who write letters to the editor are unprofessional, would the Office of Naval Information taken it seriously enough to publish it? We doubt it.

The Office of Naval Information is working out the kinks regarding its new blogger section, mistakes will happen. Engaging new media is a learning experience, and as both the Kaboom incident and the Springboard episode highlight, bloggers have their own struggles trying to fit into the national security discussion.