There’s a fuss brewing in Washington over President Bush picking a military man to head the CIA. The mainstream media and some members of Congress consider it a dire threat to the freedom of the country for a person with a military background to head this civilian spy agency. One question: Has anyone ever heard of Stansfield Turner?

Turner, a U.S. Navy admiral and former classmate of President Jimmy Carter at the U.S. Naval Academy, was Carter’s pick to head the CIA in 1977. And what was his job before taking over the CIA? He was commander in chief of U.S. Forces in Southern Europe.

As Democrats and some Republicans express concern over the appointment, the media go along with the template, either blissfully ignorant of recent history or selectively airbrushing it for political reasons. I’m not sure which would be worse.

No story that had moved by Monday morning, at least that I could find, mentions Stansfield Turner’s tenure as head of the CIA and how that appointment might be a precedent, or at least a cause to lower the level of hysteria. This used to be called “meaningful context” and it was included in stories to give everyday citizens the facts needed to help them make a decision for themselves on an important issue.

But the mainstream media’s approach to “context” has changed in recent years. Rather than add all relevant facts to a story, certain things are left out that might a) undermine the slant being given a story or, b) support the positions of, well, non-Democrats in Congress or conservatives in general.

The effect of airbrushing Turner out of the story is to give credence to the argument that appointing a man with a military background as CIA director is the first step on the slippery slope to tyranny, that there’s a James Mattoon Scott in the Pentagon just waiting to take over the government.

There is one glaring difference between the Turner appointment and the Hayden choice, however. Hayden actually knows something about intelligence.

As Edward Jay Espstein wrote in a commentary in 1985:

Although Turner had had little previous experience in intelligence, he viewed it simply as a problem of assessing data, or, as he described it to his son, nothing more than “bean’ counting.”

By all accounts, Hayden is an acknowledged expert on intelligence. As The Associated Press wrote on Sunday: “Hayden is widely respected in both parties for his long experience with intelligence, and many lawmakers said he could be a good candidate for some other job.”

Some of Hayden’s supporters have suggested that Hayden resign his commission before taking the CIA job, but that is seen by critics as simply a cosmetic change.

The usually reasonable U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday: “Just resigning [his] commission and moving on, putting on a striped suit, a pinstriped suit versus an Air Force uniform, I don’t think makes much difference.”

Perhaps the Turner case can be instructive here.

Carter appointed Turner to the CIA post on Feb. 8, 1977. He was confirmed 16 days later on Feb. 24, and was sworn in on March 9. The speed of the process indicates there does not seem to have been much concern about his military background.

But perhaps he had been retired from the military for some time and, therefore, was sufficiently “civilianized” for the concerned members of Congress. Apparently not, as Epstein points out in his 1985 commentary:

When he was abruptly summoned back to Washington in February 1977 by his former classmate at Annapolis, President Jimmy Carter, he expected to be appointed to a high naval position or to the joint Chiefs of Staff. Instead, the new President asked him to be Director of Central Intelligence (DCI).

Does Chambliss know this? Does the other Republican working against this appointment so visibly, U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), know this? Do the Democrats know this?

More importantly, do the American people know this? Not from any of the mainstream media stories that have run thus far, they don’t. How then can they, much less their elected leaders in Congress, make an intelligent decision on this matter?

Jon Ham is vice president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of its newspaper Carolina Journal.