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You are exactly right in your portrayal of how it usually goes but that thin veneer of “respectability” is generally lost on those who are coerced since it’s always a senior officer to junior officer/NCO situation. It was certainly that way in my NG time in OK in the early ‘80s. I rapidly tired of the politics and called it a day after I completed my service requirement. I didn’t have the time or resources to play by their rules.

General Joe May, AG of the Iowa Air Guard seemed to have a preference for weekend flying from Des Moines down to a certain guard hanger in Florida. The general would spend the weekend with his sweetie, then fly back Monday morning.
When the governor inquired about the use of an air guard jet, the Des Moines Register got a tip that a good story was about to break.
The general, tipped on the tip, sent a fake reporter to the gov’s Wednesday news conference to find out what the governor knew.
The paper was tipped about the general’s “spy” and his picture was page 1 in the afternoon Tribune.
The Joe May scandal lasted for months, churned endlessly by the Iowa media.