Requiem for a Blind Man

Today's obituary for Republican foreign affairs expert Peter Rodman in the New York Times probably went unnoticed by most readers. It may not merit mention in his Wikipedia entry, but Rodman also played a major role in an intelligence snafu involving digital literacy, in which an innocent fan film with a Trey Parker soundtrack was paraded before the House Intelligence Committee as an example of a supposed jihadist videogame.

See this article I wrote for more about this story. I'm hesitant to speak ill of the dead, but in many ways Rodman typified the willful media ignorance that characterized the nation's public diplomacy approach since at least the height of the Vietnam War.