Following up on the post from yesterday about the Secretary of Defense’s claim that the Pentagon report on his conduct totally exonerated him: johnfdickerson.substack… .The report said that the Secretary “created a risk to operational security that could have resulted in failed U.S. mission objectives and potential harm to U.S. pilots.”

When someone says they were “totally exonerated,” they’re not just saying, “I wasn’t found guilty.”

They are saying something far stronger: "My conduct was appropriate, correct, and within the standards expected of me.” Exoneration, in ordinary language, implies affirmation, not mere absence of punishment.

If you're “totally exonerated,” your behavior becomes, by implication, behavior that:

• met expectations,

• followed rules, and

• would withstand scrutiny if put in a best-practices manual.

So if someone chooses that label for themselves, it seems fair to ask: “If this is exemplary conduct, should it be put in the rulebook for men and women in military service to practice themselves."

Such a rulebook entry, based on this line of reasoning, would look like this: