From a Captaain in the USAF:

Jonah,
You’re right that we’re not very happy about his “shoulder rank doohickeys”, or “shoulderboards” as they are called by those of us who wear them correctly and proudly.
I was horrified to get my first look at this lieutenant colonel in an e-mail from one of my young sergeants bearing the subject line, “Before you go on national TV….” We may have a reputation for less rigidity than the other services, but the uniform requirements are a non-negotiable. It’s really embarrassing to see an officer senior to oneself become a target for the troops’ ridicule.
The sad part is that no one around him, from the producers, cameramen, et al. was savvy enough on the military to catch the problem prior to airtime. I’m not exonerating the colonel, but anyone who has served would (almost instinctively) have noticed the upside-down insignia. If someone did notice and chose to allow an officer of the United States to appear in that manner, the only word I could find for that choice is “reprehensible”. Mind you, I’m not ascribing malice toward the United States military to anyone, but I do realize it has been known to exist in some circles of the Fourth Estate.
I’d feel a bit better if the so-called “military correspondents” could learn the difference between self-propelled artillery and tanks (which have significantly different military utility), would know the rank structure well enough to address sergeants-major as “Sergeant Major” rather than “Sergeant” (which the newest of recruits understands by Day 2 of basic training, along with all the other forms of address from “Private” to “Mr. President”), and that the rifles fired at a military funeral are not a “21-gun salute”, but are from an older tradition of firing three volleys over a grave to signify the conclusion of a battlefield truce to succor the wounded and bury the dead. The press tries to hire science reporters with some science background to help explain stories to the non-scientist public, but when it comes to covering those of us sworn to defend the nation, the media organizations send reporters who couldn’t readily identify an A-10 and an F-15 if they were standing next to them. Nor do those reporters seem to care to research the issues beforehand. After all, they could learn most of what they wanted to know just by going online and reading the fact sheets from the service Web pages. I guess immersing themselves in a military history course or interviewing content, professional soldiers to gain background information just isn’t as satisfying as spending a (well-publicized after the fact) weekend sleeping on the streets to “truly understand the homeless question”.
Feel free to use this e-mail as you see fit; I would request, however, that you not use my name to avoid any misunderstanding among my colleagues.
Thanks for the great writing and the outstanding contribution NR and NRO make to the public discourse, and for the “gold standard” that the Corner sets for the blogosphere.
Respectfully,
[Name, but not rank, withheld]