McChrystal’s Macchiavellan Plan
Filed Under Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Foreign Affairs Desk, In the News, Politics, Porchy | Comments Off
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Just wanted to quickly add that, although, I’m a few days behind on this stuff, but the high mischief commented on here and on the follow through link was floated here as well. I mean right here, on Porch Dog:
…the interviews that made the story possible were done over months and it’s fairly clear that McChrystal was using Rolling Stone as a way of forcing this debate. There’s also the possibility that with a recent downturn in McChrystal’s success he’s anxious to have someone else be the general in charge if the whole thing falls apart.
Although, as usual Thomasky does it better as does the person he links too…and it was Thomasky original post on the topic that inspired the line of thinking above, so I’m surprised that he need to wait for Jim Sleeper to say it first.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think McChrystal being a registered Democrat is too compelling a reason to not try to jump ship and preserve his own legacy. Certainly he wants to appear in history books as neither failing nor accepting without a fight a failing strategy. But I think he also has a motivation to preserve his legacy within the Pentagon where a lot is riding on the COIN upstarts. If Afghanistan fails and McChrystal is blamed then all the COIN strategists will have to start all over. McChrystal’s departure makes it clear to anyone that the White House isn’t entirely behind COIN so whatever happens in Afghanistan cannot be blamed on the entire theoretical framework that McChrystal his command to start with.
Did McChrystal See the Rolling Stone Article Before it was Published?
Filed Under Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Foreign Affairs Desk, In the News, Politics, Porchy | 3 Comments
Obama explains again the chain of command to one of his military inferiors.
Well, it appears the political story of the day is General McChrystal’s write up in Rolling Stone (due out Friday) which is apparently filled with unnamed sources citing a behind the scenes brouhaha over strategy and tactics and in which McChrsytal comes across as being…insubordinate to the commander in chief.
There’s already been talk of how Obama must fire McChrsysal at this point lest he encourages further insubordination.
(See here and here). At first I was thinking this might be an over-reaction given the recent state of Afghanistan along with the White House’s move out of Iraq and reprioritization the earlier conflict.
But if this (now retracted) piece by Taegan Goddard of CQ’s Political Wire (piece was titled “mcchrystal_saw_article_before_publication.html”) is a hint of a news story to come, I think I might have to side with those recommending removal of McChrystal from the position. It would be only a temporary blow to our efforts in Afghanistan that could be lessened by keeping McChrystal on as a consultant and coordinator answering to another general.
There’s a lot of talk of McChrystal’s genius which I think is probably overstatement. The Army is full of strategically adept commanders and if McChrystal is so damned smart how did he think this was going to play out for him anyway, especially if he saw the piece prior to publication? There’s strategy everywhere not just on the battlefield and a man as smart as McChrsytal knows you can’t go around bad mouthing your commander-in-chief.
And for what it’s worth, this isn’t McChrystal’s first act of out-of-turn public speaking.
UPDATE: Michael Tomasky’s take on this, as usual, is worth the reading.
It appears that earlier reports that McChrystal had seen the story were minor misstatements. But as Tomasky points out, the interviews that made the story possible were done over months and it’s fairly clear that McChrystal was using Rolling Stone as a way of forcing this debate. There’s also the possibility that with a recent downturn in McChrystal’s success he’s anxious to have someone else be the general in charge if the whole thing falls apart.
With that in mind, this is lose-lose for Obama. If he doesn’t fire McChrystal he risks looking weak and encouraging insubordination from future commanders. If he does fire McChrystal he opens himself up to charges of putting politics before military strategy. If he doesn’t fire McChrystal and Afghanistan fails pundits can blame a military without respect for its commander. If he does fire McChrystal and Afghanistan fails, pundits will blame the firing. Obama’s best choice, as I see it, is to remove McChrystal’s command but keep him in an active role on the project so that he remains somewhat culpable.
More on Tony Hayward Stock Sale
Filed Under Domestic Politics, Politics, Porchy | Comments Off
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Last week I mentioned a lightly covered news story of BP CEO Tony Haward cashing in about 1/3 of his BP shares in the weeks before Deepwater Horizon exploded and sent millions and millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. What I said then was that in lieu of additional evidence against him, I would have to say there wasn’t much of a story there.
But in light of this, I wonder if there isn’t a little impetus for reporters to get digging.
Of course, I also said, that maybe there was a story there and that reporters were possibly working on it but needed to find more evidence before reporting. It could be that this evidence surfaced as a result of that journalistic investigation. Such fun!
I don’t know if this really raises the level to conspiracy yet. I would still like to see other BP management officials you might have been privy to this information also dumping their stock, and I still find it strange that TH only sold off a third of his when he clearly would have saved a lot more money if he’d sold more stock….and, like I said last week, he actually didn’t save all that much.
In any case, this certainly doesn’t implicate Goldman Sachs as they’ve been selling BP shares all year long.
Psychoanalysis is Bunk: Tea Pary Edition
Filed Under Domestic Politics, Politics, Porchy | Comments Off
Trying to analyze the tea party mentality in a vacuum is a mug’s game. If you want to get anywhere, you have to understand both the historical context and the media context behind them. And that context is pretty simple: if you elect a liberal Democratic president, you get this kind of reaction from middle class conservatives. In FDR’s day you got the Liberty League. JFK inspired the growth of the John Birch Society. Clinton got the conspiracy-minded talk radio crowd. And Obama has the tea parties. This is nothing new.
Not a lot of comment here, except this, Matt Drum is awesome and I wish our lives collided so that we could regularly buy each other drinks and yell at each other for not thinking exactly like the other.
Love fest over. Continue your Sunday.
Best Political Ad 2010: You Decide!
Filed Under Domestic Politics, Politics, Porchy | 1 Comment
I challenge you to tell me why this one:
Beats out this one:
keep looking »