Why the Joint Chiefs criticizing cartoons matters

From our comments:

The JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff) have a right to voice their personal opinons, but doing so as a group on gov't letterhead takes it out of the personal realm. You better believe Chris Matthews would sh** if he got something like this (come to think of it, maybe he's already gotten his). I'm inclined to think they didn't want to go so far as censorship (they'd have handled that differently) but they certainly wanted their opinions to be backed by the power of their offices, which I'd read as intimidation.

What makes either or both of the above combustible is superheated environment in which we find ourselves. No photos of caskets at Dover. Denials of torture. Whitewashed investigations into incidents where brass are exhonerated while those beneath are charged and/or convicted. Claims that we have enough troops when we clearly don't. Claims we are winning when insurgent attacks were increasing. And on... until the incidents at the SOTU (State of the Union) last night.

There's a great line (which I'm going to butcher) in "Good Night, and Good Luck." when Murrow says something to the effect that "we have to do this story because the fear is in this room."

And it ain't fear of the terrorists.

This is the issue he's talking about.