Banned because I've been tossing around an idea to help fix the military, but I'm not sure if it's really a good thing to include in my list: the basic premise is to forbid generals and military personnel from directly addressing the public or reporters. What happens seems to be that they come out in favor of something (usually more troops or more money), the public hears about it, and then civilian government feels strongly pressured to give them what they want (note that I don't think this is intentional on the generals' part. They just want stuff, have no qualms about asking for it, and it comes to them by a process they don't really understand). Instead, I think it would be better if generals and other military officials could only suggest or advocate directly to civilian leaders, removing the public pressure and in theory making said leaders a bit less likely to defer to the generals' whims. However, I am worried that it might instead end up insulating generals and other military officers from media scrutiny when they do or say something demonstrably wrong, which also poses a problem if the civvies are so deferent that the word of a general on his own can sway them.
EDIT: One other problem I can think of is that potentially the lion's share of the generals' babbling does not come from direct addresses, although they do make those, but rather from reporting to the appropriate civilian authorities in a way that is publicly available for accountability proposes but that the media still reports from the general's side. Case in point, the recent hearing with Adm. Mullen- it's him testifying to Congress in a perfectly appropriate manner, but the media is reporting the facts, advice, and dare I say it the spin as it comes out of Mullen's mouth, not Congress's.
