Victor Davis Hanson: A McChrystal Endnote
[Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.]
Obama had no choice but to do what he did, and the wise Petraeus move was obviously a mitigating factor. Obama’s speech, despite the customarily excessive use of “I,” “me,” and “my,” was workmanlike and wise in its emphasis on continuity of strategy.
In this regard, the more one reads the Rolling Stone hit piece, the more one has to be disturbed. There is much talk among conservatives to the effect that it was only McChrystal’s staff, and not the general himself, who said things to a reporter that were insubordinate. (“In private, Team McChrystal likes to talk shit about many of Obama’s top people on the diplomatic side.”)
But McChrystal is reported as deprecating the vice president (“‘Are you asking about Vice President Biden?’ McChrystal says with a laugh. ‘Who’s that?’”), and he apparently described to subordinates a meeting with his commander-in-chief in a way that reduces Obama to a fool. (“‘It was a ten-minute photo op,’ says an adviser to McChrystal. ‘Obama clearly didn’t know anything about him, who he was. Here’s the guy who’s going to run his fucking war, but he didn’t seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed.’”)
There are plenty of other causes to worry: McChrystal’s derision of a dinner with a French diplomat, the entire notion of letting off steam to a leftwing reporter in Paris during a war, even the revelation of whom McChrystal voted for (i.e., Obama). Once one digests all the ramifications of this, I think one will see this is not a partisan issue, but one of judgment and deference for the chain of command....
Read entire article at National Review
Obama had no choice but to do what he did, and the wise Petraeus move was obviously a mitigating factor. Obama’s speech, despite the customarily excessive use of “I,” “me,” and “my,” was workmanlike and wise in its emphasis on continuity of strategy.
In this regard, the more one reads the Rolling Stone hit piece, the more one has to be disturbed. There is much talk among conservatives to the effect that it was only McChrystal’s staff, and not the general himself, who said things to a reporter that were insubordinate. (“In private, Team McChrystal likes to talk shit about many of Obama’s top people on the diplomatic side.”)
But McChrystal is reported as deprecating the vice president (“‘Are you asking about Vice President Biden?’ McChrystal says with a laugh. ‘Who’s that?’”), and he apparently described to subordinates a meeting with his commander-in-chief in a way that reduces Obama to a fool. (“‘It was a ten-minute photo op,’ says an adviser to McChrystal. ‘Obama clearly didn’t know anything about him, who he was. Here’s the guy who’s going to run his fucking war, but he didn’t seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed.’”)
There are plenty of other causes to worry: McChrystal’s derision of a dinner with a French diplomat, the entire notion of letting off steam to a leftwing reporter in Paris during a war, even the revelation of whom McChrystal voted for (i.e., Obama). Once one digests all the ramifications of this, I think one will see this is not a partisan issue, but one of judgment and deference for the chain of command....