Jun 22 2010

Obama, McChrystal, and a Shit-Head Reporter

The very tip-top of the New York Times’ front page today is occupied by this flaming headline…

McChrystal Is Summoned to Washington Over Remarks

An angry President Obama summoned his top commander in Afghanistan to Washington on Tuesday after a magazine article portrayed the general and his staff as openly contemptuous of some senior members of the Obama administration.

The author of the article — Michael Hastings, a freelance journalist — appears to have been granted intimate access to General McChrystal’s inner circle. Most of the comments seem to have been uttered during unguarded moments, in places like bars and restaurants where the general and his aides gathered to unwind.

A McChrystal aide is quoted saying of Mr. Holbrooke: “The Boss says he’s like a wounded animal. Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he’s going to be fired, so that makes him dangerous.”

The article also describes a conversation in which General McChrystal and an aide talk about Mr. Biden. “Are you asking about Vice President Biden?” General McChrystal jokes.

“Biden?” suggests a top adviser. “Did you say ‘Bite me?’ ”

In a parallel universe, where Planet Earth is inhabited by intelligent life-forms, Obama would say…

“Soldiers have been grousing about higher-ups for at least 5000 years, and only a shit-head of a reporter like Michael Hastings would repeat what soldiers say among themselves off-duty in a bar, and only a shitty “life-style” magazine like Rolling Stone would print it.”

But on our stupid branch of the multi-universe, on Planet Stupid, where shit-heads rule…

This story is a very big deal.

(And if you think I’m a cheerleader for McChrystal, read this.)

22 comments

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  1. But on the upside, the Times’ new neocon columinst, Ross Douthat, who replaced Bill Kristol, has posted a rousing defense of the neocons’ favorite Democrat!

    American liberalism has always had a reputation for fractiousness and frantic self-critique. But even by those standards, the current bout of anguish over the Obama presidency seems bizarrely disproportionate.

    This is the same Barack Obama, after all, who shepherded universal health care, the dream of liberals since the days of Harry Truman (if not Thomas Paine), through several near-death experiences and finally into law. It’s the same Obama who staked the fate of the American economy on a $787 billion exercise in Keynesian pump-priming. It’s the same Obama who has done more to advance liberal priorities than any president since Lyndon Johnson.

    Hurrah!

  2. Good thing the pwoggrives weren’t in charge in WW2, they would have sacked Patton after Sicily instead of using him as a decoy.

    And then who would have pulled the great upset in the Battle of the Bulge when Germany launched its first winter offensive since Frederick the Great?

    No sense of history or dynamics these “liberals”, only massive cheerleading for their cult leader in chief.

    And let me get this straight, these pwoggresives are shocked, SHOCKED I SAY, that a general is egotistical?

    Seriously? To quote Hackworth, they are all perfume princes.

    And how switches horses when charging up a hill?

    If we swap generals now, there is no way in hell we are leaving by 2011.

    Maybe that was the plan all along.

    To bad we don’t have a Bradley we can hot swap with this Patton. Hell, I’d even take a Stormin’ Norman at this point.

  3. mcchystal said?

    Is that your point here?

  4. Rolling Stone has established a brand new record for banning yours truly!

    I registered to comment on Michael Hastings’ article, posted, and my account was immediately disabled, all in less than 5 minutes!

    Yowza!

    Those aging bourgeois hipsters really know how to kill a buzz!

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