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WEDNESDAY,  JUNE 23,  2010

MARCH OF JOURNALISM NEWS – AT 7:59 P.M. ET:  CNN, not exactly wealthy in the ratings, is going rogue with a new show featuring a disgraced governor.  No word yet on whether the governor's former, er, business associates will be involved, but it will be quite a show if they are:

Eliot Spitzer, until very recently known primarily as the disgraced former governor of New York, will formally re-emerge as a regular television personality as the host of new prime-time news discussion program on CNN next fall.

The news network announced Tuesday that Mr. Spitzer would be joined by the Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative columnist for The Washington Post, Kathleen Parker, in a format that the CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein is describing as a “roundup of all the best ideas” of the day.

I wonder if hiring prostitutes would be considered a "best idea," since that is what Spitzer did while governor of New York. 

Spitzer has always wanted to be president.  The governor thing got buried between the sheets.  Maybe his new role as TV host will fare a little better...if he can keep his hands off Kathleen.

June 23, 2010      Permalink

NEXT HEADS? – AT 7:49 P.M. ET:  With Petraeus now firmly in command in Afghanistan, some are wondering whether other heads will join Stanley McChrystal's, rolling down a hill.  Clearly, there are some nominations.  From Fox:

President Obama won virtually unanimous praise for reshuffling his Afghanistan command in the name of unity on Wednesday -- but lawmakers and military analysts said they want to see the president heed his own no-tolerance policy and crack the whip on the civilian side when there's division in the ranks...

..."There clearly isn't unity," said Pete Hegseth, an Iraq veteran and executive director of Vets for Freedom. "McChrystal aired some frustration that a lot of people have been having."

And...

Some of the most searing and direct criticism in the Rolling Stone article was aimed at Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, who threw a wrench into the months-long strategy review process last year by raising critical questions about the troop buildup McChrystal was advocating and which was eventually adopted.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., strongly suggested Wednesday that Eikenberry may present the next hurdle to mission unity in Afghanistan.

"We still have concerns about the civilian side," he said. "In fact, we might suggest that a consideration be given to reuniting the Crocker-Petraeus team."

Ryan Crocker was the top diplomat in Iraq while Petraeus was in command. The two were considered a dynamic team.

And a successful team.  Now, with all the hoopla over a general being fired, Americans will demand that Obama produce something in Afghanistan.  One obstacle is clearly our skeptical ambassador.  And other obstacles may work in the White House.

June 23, 2010     Permalink

OUR GREAT NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS OVER – AT 7:32 P.M. ET:  And it only took a day.  President Obama, as everyone knows by now, "accepted" the resignation of General Stanley McChrystal as our commander in Afghanistan.

Obama was gracious in his comments about McChrystal.  This was the president's "big firing" thus far.  Perhaps symbolic of this administration, McChrystal was fired, not for something he did, but for something he said...in this case to a reporter. 

There is no word on whether McChrystal will write his memoirs, or whether he already has a literary agent or movie deal.  Given what has happened to the film industry, it's unlikely that many of its "executives" have ever heard of Stan McChrystal or would have any interest in anything he said, unless it appealed to 12-year-olds and could be set to hip-hop "music."

Somewhat odd was Obama's appointment of Dave Petraeus to replace McChrystal.  Petraeus, head of CENTCOM, was already McChrystal's boss.  He will now wear two hats.

Of course, the choice of Petraeus has some obvious roots.  First, he's well-known to the public, and the choice will be popular.  Second, this pretty much eliminates Petraeus as a 2012 presidential candidate, unless there's some dramatic, and unlikely, resignation in protest in Petraeus's future.  Third, the quick appointment eliminates the Washington guessing game.

I've been monitoring the reaction to today's events.  Most pundits agree that the president was well within his rights, legal and moral, to remove McChrystal.  Some former Army officers regretted McChrystal's departure and blamed Obama and his leadership.  But I suspect this episode will blow over quickly.

June 23, 2010      Permalink

JEB SURFACES – AT 8:39 A.M. ET:  There's been some political buzz recently about Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida and brother of Dubya, as a possible presidential candidate.  It's a long shot, but Jeb has started to emerge, is attacking Obama and defending his brother.  From The New York Times:

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — For months now, Jeb Bush has been listening as President Obama blasts his older brother’s administration for the battered economy, budget deficits and even the lax oversight of oil wells.

“It’s kind of like a kid coming to school saying, ‘The dog ate my homework,’ ” Mr. Bush, this state’s former governor, said over lunch last week at the Biltmore Hotel. “It’s childish. This is what children do until they mature. They don’t accept responsibility.”

In fact, instead of constantly bashing the 43rd president, Mr. Bush offered, perhaps Mr. Obama could learn something from him, especially when it comes to ignoring the Washington chatter. “This would break his heart, to get advice that applies some of the lessons of leadership my brother learned, because he apparently likes to act like he’s still campaigning, and he likes to blame George’s administration for everything,” Mr. Bush said, dangling a ketchup-soaked French fry. “But he really seems like he’s getting caught up in what people are writing about him.”

“I mean, good God, man, read a book!” Mr. Bush said with a laugh. “Go watch ESPN!”

Naturally, a Times writer cannot avoid the required Bush bashing, without which pensions will not be paid:

Washington wisdom — such as it is — holds that the real impediment to Mr. Bush’s political future would be the Bush brand, which has taken a pounding both inside the party and out. Neither George W. Bush nor his father ranks among the more successful presidents of our time, to put it politely.

Jeb Bush’s admirers insist, however, that whatever cloud existed over the name is lifting, as memories of the last Bush era recede, replaced by a hardened conservative opposition to Mr. Obama’s policies. And those who know Mr. Bush say he has never concerned himself with it. “He’s the guy who cares about that the least,” said Nicholas Ayers, executive director of the Republican Governors Association.

We'll watch Jeb, who was a very successful governor and has the added political advantage of being married to a Hispanic woman. 

Look, you never know.  Dubya's beginning to look awfully good, compared to the current train wreck.  And Jeb is his own guy with his own approach. 

At the same time, the GOP is building up a sizable pool of presidential talent, including the old-timers like Romney and the newer-timers like Jindal.  Jeb, you might just have to wait your turn.

June 23, 2010      Permalink

OBAMA AND AFGHANISTAN – AT 7:36 A.M. ET:  Michael Barone nails the issues, as he usually does, surrounding the latest crisis, the McChrystal bit, hurting our efforts in Afghanistan.  From the Washington Examiner:

Unfortunately, there's not much correlation between the skill set needed to win the Iowa caucuses and the Super Tuesday primaries and that needed to decide on military strategies and to select the appropriate commanders for different military operations.

Obama's decision-making on Afghanistan so far could be characterized as splitting the difference. He added troops early on and opted for McChrystal's counterinsurgency strategy while propitiating his party's left wing with something in the nature of a deadline for withdrawal.

While backing McChrystal, he also appointed as our civilian leader in Afghanistan retired Gen. Karl Eikenberry, who disagreed with McChrystal's strategy. By all accounts, including Rolling Stone's, they have not had the close cooperative relationship that Gen. David Petraeus and civilian honcho Ryan Crocker had in Iraq in 2007 and 2008...

...Obama leads a political party which before his election argued that Afghanistan was the good war (and Iraq the bad one) but which is now divided on whether we should persevere there. He faces an opposition party which mostly supports our course in Afghanistan but is worried about our prospects there and fears a premature withdrawal.

He is not the first president to head a national security establishment that is divided and distrustful, as the Rolling Stone article confirms. And he is surely not the first president to be the subject of disparaging remarks by his military subordinates.

But unfortunately those remarks have come out into the open in a way that makes it very hard to go on splitting the difference. If Gen. McChrystal has to go, as seems likely as this is written, then it may be time to consider other changes in personnel.

And it may be time for Obama to embrace a word he has been reluctant to utter: Victory. His duty is to set a course that will produce success, to install the people who can achieve that goal and to give them the backing they need.

We didn't need this, and Obama didn't either. But he wanted the job, and now he must command.

COMMENT:  An excellent view, from a political perspective, of where Obama now stands.  We all await the news from the president's confrontation with McChrystal in the Oval Office today.  Obama has a history of messing up virtually anything except his own election, and his relationship with the military is chilly, at best. 

One would hope that the president, for the first time, would avoid genuflecting to the Massachusetts and California delegations of his party, and take into account the view of those Americans who believe, as Michael Barone does, that "victory" is an honorable word.

June 23, 2010      Permalink

YEAH, I WOULD THINK SO.  WHAT ABOUT EXECUTION? – AT 7:26 A.M. ET:  The McChrystal affair has claimed its first casualty, and deservedly so.  From WaPo: 

KABUL -- Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's civilian press aide resigned Tuesday over an upcoming magazine story that portrayed the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan and some of his aides as derisive toward Obama administration officials.

Duncan Boothby, who has been on McChrystal's staff for roughly a year, was the first casualty of a controversy that prompted White House officials to summon the general to the White House to explain the remarks in the profile that will appear in this week's issue of Rolling Stone.

Boothby was heavily involved in arranging access for journalist Michael Hastings to McChrystal and his staff this year so Hastings could write the profile, titled "The Runaway General."

An official in Kabul confirmed the resignation, speaking on condition of anonymity because it was a personnel issue.

Boothby is not a military officer. He is one of a growing number of civilians hired as press aides for senior military brass as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to generate considerable public interest and controversy.

COMMENT:  I guarantee you that he will never be a press aide to a uniformed officer again.  What was the man thinking – arranging that much access for a reporter from a counterculture, leftist magazine with no warmth for the military?

Okay, New York Times, there's this great guy available.  Experience in Afghanistan.  Named Duncan...

June 23, 2010      Permalink

IS JIMMAH CONCERNED ABOUT THIS? – AT 7:14 A.M. ET:  Maybe Jimmah Carter can ease his distress (see post just below) by taking on the Iranian nuclear program.  Of course, he'd probably reply, "What nuclear program?"  Apparently, it's up and running.  From Reuters:

Iran has enriched 17 kg of uranium to 20 percent purity, a top official said on Wednesday, underscoring Tehran's determination to push ahead with its nuclear program despite new international sanctions.

Iran's enrichment activities are at the heart of its standoff with the West which fears it is seeking nuclear weapons capability. Two weeks ago, the United Nations Security Council agreed to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran.

Iran started refining uranium to 20 percent purity -- up from around 5 percent -- in February, saying it aimed to make fuel for a medical research reactor.

The move -- a significant step towards making weapons-grade uranium, which is 90 percent enriched -- has alarmed the West.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and primarily aimed at electricity generation.

"We have already produced 17 kg of 20 percent enriched uranium, and we have the ability to produce 5 kg each month but we do not rush," Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency...

...Mark Fitzpatrick, senior fellow for non-proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London told Reuters that around 200 kg of 20 percent enriched uranium, if further enriched, would be required to make a nuclear bomb.

COMMENT:  The claim cannot be verified, but the statement is one of defiance, and statements like that in the past have accurately predicted Iran's ignoring of sanctions.  There is no reason to believe that the lastest set, voted by the UN, will result in any success. 

And when Iran gets the bomb?  Well, Obama can blame it on Bush and Cheney.  But now he can introduce a new scapegoat:  McCHRYSTAL (!!!!).  "He distracted me.  I was working on the problem, and would've turned Iran into an ally, but that general, he took all my energy."

And some would believe that.

June 23, 2010      Permalink

BULLETIN:  NATION POSSIBLY IN DANGER – AT 7:05 A.M. ET:  We at Urgent Agenda are entirely committed to the safety of the United States.  When that safety is threatened, we let you know immediately.  Today we have a crisis:

(CNSNews.com) – Former President Jimmy Carter has voiced concern that Monday’s Supreme Court ruling on “material support” to terrorist groups may criminalize his “work to promote peace and freedom.”

Carter, whose advocacy has entailed contact with groups designated by the U.S. government as “foreign terrorist organizations” (FTOs) – notably Hamas and Hezbollah – said he was disappointed by the court decision...

...Arguing that there can be no peace in the region without those groups’ participation, Carter has reached out to Hamas and Hezbollah, rejecting criticism that doing so could be viewed as legitimizing their violent activities. Since the 1980s both groups have killed hundreds of people in suicide bombings and other terror attacks, most of them Israelis and Americans.

You will notice all the good that Carter has done.  In the immortal words of Dwight Eisenhower, in another context, if you give me a week, I might be able to think of something.

In a statement reacting to the decision, Carter said, “We are disappointed that the Supreme Court has upheld a law that inhibits the work of human rights and conflict resolution groups.”

“The ‘material support law’ – which is aimed at putting an end to terrorism – actually threatens our work and the work of many other peacemaking organizations that must interact directly with groups that have engaged in violence,” he said.

“The vague language of the law leaves us wondering if we will be prosecuted for our work to promote peace and freedom.”

Well, there goes Mideast peace.  And just when Carter was on the verge of achieving it. 

Damn Supreme Court, always on the side of the BUSH (!!) crowd.

Without Jimmah Carter, what are we going to do?

For laughs.

June 23, 2010     Permalink

TUESDAY,  JUNE 22,  2010

NIKKI WINS – AT 9:07 P.M. ET:  Nikki Haley has won the Republican primary runoff for governor of South Carolina, as expected. 

If elected she will be South Carolina's first female governor and will be the second Indian-American governor, the other being Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. 

In addition, Tim Scott has defeated Paul Thurmond for the Republican nomination for Congress in South Carolina's First Congressional District.  Scott is an African-American.  If elected, he'll be the first black congressman from South Carolina since the Civil War era.  Thurmond is the son of the late Senator Strom Thurmond, who ran for president as a "Dixiecrat" in 1948, abandoning the Democratic Party because the party was embracing civil rights.  The elder Thurmond later become a Republican and moderated his racial views. 

Nikki Haley, Tim Scott.  South Carolina.  Is this a great country, or what?  And maybe it's time that the snotty northern liberals started showing some well-deserved respect for the new, rising South.

June 22, 2010      Permalink

NO, BARACK, YOU DON'T HAVE ABSOLUTE POWER – AT 7:32 P.M. ET:  A federal judge in Bobby Jindal's New Orleans has struck down the temporary ban on deepwater drilling imposed by the Obama administration, in a victory for common sense.  From Fox:

In a victory for drilling proponents, a federal judge struck down President Obama's six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, saying the administration rashly concluded that because one rig failed, the others are in immediate danger, too.

The White House promised an immediate appeal. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president believes strongly that drilling at such depths does not make sense and puts the safety of workers "at a danger that the president does not believe we can afford."

The Interior Department had halted approval of any new permits for deepwater drilling and suspended drilling of 33 exploratory wells in the Gulf.

Several companies that ferry people and supplies and provide other services to offshore drilling rigs asked U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans to overturn the moratorium.

They argued it was arbitrarily imposed after the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers and blew out the well 5,000 feet underwater. It has spewed anywhere from 67 million to 127 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.

COMMENT:  Feldman is correct.  The moratorium is grandstanding.  There also does not seem to be any scientific or engineering basis to it.  We await the administration's appeal.

June 22, 2010     Permalink

HIGH NOON – AT 7:23 P.M. ET:  It's all McChrystal all the time.  The four-star general who spoke truth to cower in a Rolling Stone piece is the king of the internet today.  He's been called home to the White House to explain.

Everyone seems to have a theory as to what will happen when Gary Cooper meets the Chicago boys at high noon.  Charles Krauthammer believes that the best idea making the rounds is that McChrystal should bring his resignation to the White House and present it to the president.  The president should take it, then, citing the national need, reject it.  Obama would come off, for the first time in his presidency, as a big man.

Yet others believe McChrystal has to go.  Otherwise, Obama is stuck with a man who's openly mocked him. 

The most intriguing question:  Did McChrystal actually plan this?  Did he want that harsh criticism of the Obamans to come out, even if it meant his career?  Was he trying to protect himself, not believing the president has the will to win in Afghanistan, and that McChrystal will be given the blame?

Stay tuned.  High drama at the White house tomorrow as Stanley comes marching home again.

June 22, 2010     Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 7:20 A.M. ET:  Surprisingly, from generally liberal columnist Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, on Obama's strange, value-free, feelings-free "intellectualism":

Foreign policy is the realm where a president comes closest to ruling by diktat. By command decision, the war in Afghanistan has been escalated, yet it seems to lack an urgent moral component. It has an apparent end date even though girls may not yet be able to attend school and the Taliban may rule again. In some respects, I agree -- the earlier out of Afghanistan, the better -- but if we are to stay even for a while, it has to be for reasons that have to do with principle. Somewhat the same thing applies to China. It's okay to trade with China. It's okay to hate it, too.

Pragmatism is fine -- as long as it is complicated by regret. But that indispensable wince is precisely what Obama doesn't show. It is not essential that he get angry or cry. It is essential, though, that he show us who he is. As of now, we haven't a clue.

COMMENT:  Isn't it remarkable that a Washington columnist can ask, almost two years after a president's election, who he is.  That is no compliment to Obama.  Great men and women declare their principles, and seek a certain nobility.  They're remembered for standing for something that we can admire. 

What does Obama stand for?  What would he be willing to die for?  To go to war for? 

My great fear is that he does stand for things, and that he may be very smart, politically, to not tell us what they are.

June 22, 2010     Permalink 

SOUTH CAROLINA RUNOFF TODAY – AT 6:53 A.M. ET:  History will probably be made in South Carolina today.  Nikki Haley, an Indian-American woman opposed by a sizable chunk of the good-'ol-boy Republican network, is poised to become the GOP nominee for governor, and is ahead in the polls for November.  From The Politico:

CONWAY, S.C. — Nikki Haley, the 38-year-old Indian-American political phenom who might be South Carolina’s next governor, downplays the two attributes that would make her different from her 115 predecessors.

When asked whether someone of her profile, the daughter of immigrants, could have been elected to statewide office when she was growing up here, she has a ready and artful answer.

“I think the timing is right, where people realize this is about issues,” Haley said in an interview. “It’s not about gender; it’s not about race.”

Yet the pink T-shirts some of her supporters wore Monday morning, a day before the Republican gubernatorial runoff, to a rally at a Main Street cafe here, tell a different story.

“If you want something said, ask a man,” read the Margaret Thatcher quote on the back of the “Haley for Governor” shirt. “If you want something done, ask a woman.”

The two messages may seem contradictory — avoiding explicit identity politics while harnessing the energy it has undoubtedly produced — but it’s precisely the finely calibrated mix that has vaulted the third-term Republican state representative and accountant to the verge of national political stardom.

And she's not the only news in South Carolina today:

And she isn’t alone this year: Tim Scott, another state representative, could become South Carolina’s first black Republican congressman since Reconstruction.

COMMENT:  The times they are a-changin', but not necessarily the way the other side would like them to change.  Nikki Haley is a far cry from Bella Abzug, the fire-breathing feminist congresswoman from New York in the 1960s.  And South Carolina is no longer the South Carolina of the Dixiecrats.  The South has risen again, and it's a south that, if Nikki Haley is elected, will have two Indian-American governors, the other being Bobby Jindal of Louisiana.  And both are Republicans.

Conservatism takes many forms.  One of the most creative is in the American South, which has shown that progress and patriotism go side by side.

June 22, 2010     Permalink

A WARNING FROM HISTORY – AT 6:44 A.M. ET:  Thomas Sowell, one of the best minds writing today, and an African-American who won't go along with what is "expected" of him, warns that what is happening in Washington can lead to an increasing tyranny in America.  From Investor's Business Daily:

When Adolf Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920s, leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics.

Such people were a valuable addition to his political base, since they were particularly susceptible to Hitler's rhetoric and had far less basis for questioning his assumptions or his conclusions.

"Useful idiots" was the term supposedly coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his dictatorship in the Soviet Union.

Put differently, a democracy needs informed citizens if it is to thrive, or ultimately even survive.

In our times, American democracy is being dismantled, piece by piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it.

Most of the people who are concerned are on the internet, not in the mainstream media.  The very press we used to depend on to safeguard our freedoms has become largely indifferent to them.

Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation?  Nowhere.

And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

And...

If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion — or $50 billion or $100 billion — then so be it.

But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without "due process of law."

Sowell's logic should make us fear President Obama's choices for court appointments, for the federal courts determine the shape of the Constitution, as it is actually applied.

With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution.

If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don't believe in constitutional government.

CONSIDER:  Two years ago, did you think that General Motors would be run by Washington? 

And yet, a clear-cut legal case for voter intimidation by the Black Panthers was shelved by the Justice Department, despite overwhelming evidence that it could easily be won, and voters protected.

A great fear being expressed by a number of writers on the right is that, after the Democrats are crushed in November, a lame duck session of Congress, heavily populated by defeated congressmen and senators, will pass sweeping legislation granting more power to the Obama White House.  Even a Republican majority would be incapable of reversing that legislation since Obama could veto anything the GOP could pass.

We're in danger, at home and abroad.  We've got to wake up.

June 22, 2010     Permalink

FASHION NEWS FROM IRAN – AT 6:36 A.M. ET:  One thing about the rulers of Iran, they are fashion conscious, and they have very definite tastes.  From AFP:

Iranian police have issued warnings to 62,000 women who were "badly veiled" in the Shiite holy province of Qom as part of a clampdown on dress and behaviour, a newspaper said on Monday.
Around "62,000 women were warned for being badly veiled" in the province of Qom, Tehran Emrouz newspaper quoted provincial police chief Colonel Mehdi Khorasani as saying.

It was unclear whether all the women issued with warnings were from Qom or the tally included travellers passing through the province.

Khorasani said police had also confiscated around 100 cars for carrying improperly dressed women, adding that "encouraging such relaxations are among the objectives of the enemy."

Yeah, the CIA has a whole department devoted to veils. 

The population of Qom is more than one million, with most of them concentrated in the city itself which is Shiite Iran's clerical nerve-centre.

By law, women in the Islamic republic must be covered from head to foot, with their hair completely veiled, and social interaction is banned between men and women who are not related.

COMMENT:  Now, we await the response of Western "human rights" and "women's rights" groups to this.  Can you hear the silence already?  Forced veiling only gives a hint of the oppression of Iranian women, and Muslim women generally.  And it gives a hint of what's in store for our civilization if this madness is not resisted. 

We hope that someone gives Barack Obama a copy of this story, maybe as he's resting at the 9th or 10th hole.

June 22, 2010     Permalink 

TIME TO PACK – AT 6:32 A.M. ET:  It is hard to know what some people are thinking when they start talking.  From Fox:

The top U.S. war commander in Afghanistan apologized Tuesday for an interview in which he said he felt betrayed by the man the White House chose to be his diplomatic partner, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry.

The article in this week's issue of Rolling Stone depicts Gen. Stanley McChrystal as a lone wolf on the outs with many important figures in the Obama administration and unable to convince even some of his own soldiers that his strategy can win the war.

In Kabul on Tuesday, McChrystal issued a statement saying: "I extend my sincerest apology for this profile. It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened."

In Rolling Stone, McChrystal is described by an aide as "disappointed" in his first Oval Office meeting with an unprepared President Barack Obama. The article says that although McChrystal voted for Obama, the two failed to connect from the start. Obama called McChrystal on the carpet last fall for speaking too bluntly about his desire for more troops.

And it gets more juicy:

Asked by the Rolling Stone reporter about what he now feels of the war strategy advocated by Biden last fall – fewer troops, more drone attacks – McChrystal and his aides reportedly attempted to come up with a good one-liner to dismiss the question. "Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal reportedly joked. "Who's that?"

Biden initially opposed McChrystal's proposal for additional forces last year. He favored a narrower focus on hunting terrorists.

"Biden?" one aide was quoted as saying. "Did you say: Bite me?"

Another aide reportedly called White House National Security Adviser Jim Jones, a retired four star general, a "clown" who was "stuck in 1985."

Some of the strongest criticism, however, was reserved for Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"The boss says he's like a wounded animal," one of the general's aides was quoted as saying. "Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he's going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous."

COMMENT:  Well, what can one say?  Douglas MacArthur, who wore five stars and who'd accepted the Japanese surrender aboard USS Missouri in 1945, was ousted as commander of UN forces by President Truman during the Korean War, for making public statements questioning American policy.

MacArthur was vastly more popular than the little-known Stan McChrystal, and his firing unleashed an outpouring of near-hatred toward Mr. Truman, who'd made exactly the right call.  MacArthur had clearly been insubordinate.  (Within a year most Americans started to agree with Truman as a result of some of MacArthur's outlandish comments.  Although called "the Republican general," and very much wanting to be president, Mac made virtually no impression at the 1952 GOP convention, which nominated Eisenhower, MacArthur's former aide.)

McChrystal is MacArthur, the smaller sequel.  McChrystal really has to go.  No president, even a very bad one like Obama, can tolerate a general who, with his aides, undermines policy and those making it. 

But will Obama do a Truman?  If McChrystal is smart, he won't give Obama the chance, and will resign.  If McChrystal doesn't take that obvious step, he's in for trouble.  Obama may just keep him on, the better to use him as a whipping boy if we lose in Afghanistan. 

This will be fascinating – to see how Obama handles the situation.  Stand by.

June 22, 2010      Permalink