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In today's White House press briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs declined to say if Gen. Stanley McChrystal's job is safe after incendiary comments by him and his anonymous aides in a Rolling Stone profile of the general.
"The president will speak with Gen. McChrystal about his comments, and we'll have more to say after that meeting [tomorrow]," Gibbs said.
When Gibbs was read the passage in the profile -- in which McChrystal is described by an aide as not believing Obama was "engaged" on Afghanistan -- he responded: "The president looks forward to speaking with him about that article."
Gibbs later described Obama as being very angry about the article.
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In today's White House press briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs declined to say if Gen. Stanley McChrystal's job is safe after incendiary comments by him and his anonymous aides in a Rolling Stone profile of the general.
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Well.... color me surprised! lol
I would have thought the MSM would be the FIRST to know if McChrystal's gonna stay or gonna go...
Gibbs later described Obama as being very angry about the article.
As he has the right to be. Total disrespect from the general and his aides.
THis is bad all around, boneheaded by the general but equally bad for the President. He was handpicked to win and this is Obama's war. Not good when your guy thinks you are a clown, although I do agree with him that Obama is a clown.
Jake
He did not say that he thought President Obama was a Clown. Just read the article again okay. You big mouth blow hard..... geeez
Blah Blah Blah MsMatte, if you cant read between the lines then there is no point debating with you. And yes Obama is a clown!
Who wouldn't like to be a fly on the wall at that meeting? It is a given that McCrystal will have his letter of resignation with him, the anger is palpable at this briefing, however restrained Robert Gibbs tries to be.
President Obama is one person I would not like to see when he is angry. Usually he is self controlled and well-mannered. But my guess is when he gets angry, the White House roof is not high enough.
Ron:
I think you are right. I have stated from the beginning of Obama's Presidency and after studying the man closely (which many fail to do) that there is a dark side to Obama that one does not want to mess with. I use the term dark side which may be inappropriate but for lack of a better term I was thinking in terms of people's good and dark sides in general. In any case, this side of Obama is that which lies pretty dormant under most conditions. He has trained himself since his youth as an African American to keep this side in check for obvious reasons and by relying on, perhaps over-relying on, the calm and cool side that you see the majority of the time. But I can see the dark side, just a glimmer here and there, and know that it lurks just beneath the surface. And as you I have always said I would not want to be the cause to unleash the same. There is a line of patience that one does not want to cross with Obama. This line runs pretty deep and can be walked on to the point of appearing you are taking advantage of Obama. But cross that line and whether McChrystal (if he has indeed crossed that line), the leaders of North Korea or Iran, Israel, an intolerant and over-critical lying republican, and Obama will unleash that anger whose intent is to pin your a** to the wall. Obama does tend to walk prety softly but I do believe there is a pretty d**m big stick hidden in there somewhere.
You're right and I think the same thing. What time does McChrystal get there? We should watch to see the roof lift a bit and listen for loud noises.
People make a big mistake when they interpret calm and cool as lacking emotion or temper. Those who view it as a weakness and keep "testing the water" fail to recognize that it is the opposite--it shows a strength of character. People who are generally calm and patient have a long fuse but sooner or later the fuse burns to the end and....look out.
Obama doesnt have it in him to get mad, I have said it before he folds like a set of cheap lawn furniture, he has his other cronies as hired guns to take care of the dirty work.
CA, I agree with you about President Obama's 'dark' side. I saw this side during the HCR debate when the Congress obfuscated so long that HCR was almost dead. I said then - and now - that HCR was passed because the insurance companies messed with President Obama's mother, and that legislation was his gift to his mother (and the rest of us are beneficiaries).
Now, with Gen. McChrystal, the oil mess, the AZ mess, the Afghan mess, the Iraq mess (need I go on), you are going to start seeing a LOT more pushback from this President. Personally, I would let the whole thing go to hell in a handbasket, but then when I get angry, I could care less about anyone (that's why I keep my temper in check as well). Look to see President Obama start making decisions and taking more decisive action against his detractors.
Well at least this little bit of insubordination in the military takes the focus off the Obama failures in the economy, the Gulf oil spill response, Iran developing nukes, the deficit, unemployment. Turns out this little dust up Obama has with McCrystal might just have a silver lining to it.
Are you retarded, or just stuck on the same old line each and every day? The guy's outpaced his predecessor by a country mile and then some. Tell me this, did you post on here, NewsHole, Fox Fourms or any other blog sites when Bush was screwing things up WAY worse??
that's funny, you could have inserted the name george bush where you had obama and almost everything would be the same. i am sure in your mind when bush left office we had a great economy, iran was not developing nukes, unemployment was near 0% and deregulation of these oil well rules did not occur. hello, mcfly, hello.
JoAnna must be done abusing her 'dumb' animals early today...
And drive-by I loathe the word retarded - but in this case it's entirely appropriate!
Oh, brother.
Feisty- I'll try to refrain from using the R word fromn ow on, and use the more appropriate "dumb sh*t"- hozzat? Or, if I want to rachet it up to something even worse, how about "Sarah".
Thanks Drive-By! ;0)
gingerbread,
Watching Gibbs as I type. Funny watching people ask the same questions over and over trying to lead him on. I hope the General will do the honorable thing and resign his command. I am afraid our President may not fire him outright for reasons we may not know or understand.
Agreed Retired. There are all sorts of actions going on behind closed doors that none of us will ever be privy to, and from my perspective, most of the time I'm OK with that.
For people who dont like this President, they keep trying to second guess him but it really is trying to undermine him in the hopes he will quit (never happen) or at the least demoralize him and those of us who support him. To me that borders on being unAmerican and not too far from being treasonous.
Ya think?
Another tough situation for President Obama.
He must decide...once again, what to do.
He's a consensus guy...will there be meetings?
I bet there have already been some.
For most of the folks at First Read, this is not an agonizing, gut-wrenching decision.
So...what is President Obama waiting for?
One of the things that I admire about our President is that he has demonstrated a cool and relaxed temperment. I believe whatever he decison he makes will be thoroughly thought threw and the decision will be fair and just.
Jeez, the right wing never stops making everything a negative.
I'll take Pres Obama getting the facts and listening to opposing views any day over "the decider" who used his "gut" to decide everything even war.
So, K Mac-
Should President Obama decide to retain General McChrystal, after much deliberation...
You're good with it, right?
How about you, Jody?
Well Mixed, that decision is entirely up to the President, whatever decision he makes I am good with unlike those who will not give him credit for anything he does good and there are more good, concrete decisions than bad ones. All you have to do is be reasonable and get over the loss that you suffered during the election. I personally think the general should be fired for insubordination, guilty as your negativeness.
It makes you feel good sometimes to reflect on the positives instead of the negatives, there are enough negatives to deal with without creating false ones, right? RIGHTTTTTTTT.
I don't know, this whole thing puts me in mind of not only Truman and MacArthur, but Lincoln and McClellan. He mistook Lincoln's hands off approach to Generals as weakness and simply would not do the job, and was famously insubordinate in public as well. It is claimed that at one point Lincoln said (paraphrasing) "if the General does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time." As we know,McClellan lost his job. Lincoln went through several Generals before Grant took over. So, moving through Generals is not unusual, and Generals losing their jobs for insubordination is not unusual either.
Aha. I finally remembered the name of the admiral (Commander of Centcom before David Petraeus), whom Bush relieved of command for saying that Bush would invade Iran over the admiral's dead body -- it was William Fallon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Fallon
But at least Fallon got fired for standing up for something important, and not just for making -- or countenancing snarky remarks.
The difference? Fallon fell on his sword. McCrystal sat on his.
More to read about the rift between Admiral Fallon and George Bush about Iran.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2008/mar/12/irandovefallonfliesthebus
Ask yourself this ... what if Admiral Fallon HADN'T departed noisily?
This is off topic, but I saw last night from either Keith or Rachel's program where a clip of Rahm was shown from one of the Sunday morning programs. I don't watch these programs as I am usually over @ C-Span every Sat. and Sun. morning, watching/listening to either an author or a seminar/talk about a certain moment in history. This June has been dedicated quite a bit to Watergate and D-Day, WWII.
Anyway, when I saw the clip of Rahm I was struck by his appearance as I hadn't seen him for quite a while on tv. He looked rested, tanned, healthy.
I don't know why, but I was expecting him to look like a wreck considering everything the Administration has had to deal with head on, particularly the oil crisis in the Gulf in recent months.
The President we can all agree I'm sure, has looked weary more than once. Rahm looked great. It was good to see, considering it's my understanding he's a workaholic. I hope they're all pacing themselves with lots of time for family and outdoor recreation. It's vital in order to keep a good frame of mind.
The workers in the Gulf. I hope they are getting some rest as well, when they can. I feel for them and are in my thoughts constantly.
A military general should not be "dissing" the POTUS in public. However, I think it is EXTREMELY safe to say that nearly everyone here who is spouting their faux outrage would be cheering and saying "bravo" if it were Bush being dissed. Can any of you credibly deny this? .....I didn't think so. Once again, the hypocrisy of the FR libs shines through. What a complete joke you all are.
Only in the minds of those, C.U. Farley, who have no understanding of the importance of the Constitutional question involved. But, having read your some of your posts, I quite understand the importance of the Civilian Control of the Armed Forces is well above your ability to analyze.
Thats a good question you pose CU. And I'll have to admit it took me a minute to think about it. But to answer your question honestly, I would have applied the same "he needs to be fired" comment to a General who dissed Bush in a similar or like manner. But to be completely honest, then after the General had been fired I would have said ok, now it's GW's turn, and called for his impeachment. I would have offered to drive him home to Crawford where we could have spent a weekend driving around the ranch, sharing in a few beers and having a barbeque. We would have parted under good terms.
Will those here clamoring for the president to fire his general be as critical (of Gen. McChrystal) if he doesn't? Critical of the president?
Sad that this moment isn't taken as an opportunity to discuss the larger issues surrounding our current strategy in the area...
Tue Jun 22, 2010 2:00 PM EDT
you name it,but everything this president touches and it gets worse.Economy,unemployment,Iran,Afghanistan,the Gulf oil spill,etc.He is no Commander in Chief!!!Inexperienced,incompetent and in over his head.Go ahead play golf,shoot hoops,go bowling and keep doing what the majority of this country doesn"t want (bad heathcare bill,no immigration reform) and you will wind up worse than Carter.On second thought,you are worse than Carter already.
Is the actual article available in print right now or just these selected blurbs? If available, could someone provide a link because the referenced MSNBC article is not the actual piece.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236
They have been on a roll as of late
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/111965
It's available and it's obvious most of the people here have not read it yet. It may be long but you should really read it. I was looking all over it for more criticisms but could only find where Obama was not engaged, took too long to make a decision about more troops, and how they have not connected. Most of the other slams were for Jones, Holbrooke, Eikenberry - some slams on McCain and Kerry but not for Hillary Clinton.
So I have mixed thoughts about firing him.
something to read;
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/general-mcchrystal-rolling-stone-fallout-062210
http://www.esquire.com/features/fox-fallon
On a similar note, had any US General said the same things that this one had about Bush you would have been calling for his job.
Go look up the definition of insubordination in the UCMJ. What happened here is the text book defintion. The man should lose his job not because he dissed a President I like. He should lose his job because he violated millitary law by openly making disparaging comments about the Commander in Chief. Full stop.
Publicly and openly criticizing the boss, especially in the military, isn't a good idea. Others have tried and their careers ended.
FIRE THE PUNK !!!!!
Why would Gen. Stanley McCrystal - presumably have to be street smart to get as far as he's gotten - appear to shoot himself in the proverbial foot over his comments in Rolling Stone.
The logical answer can be found by comparing his actions to a kid who - after realizing he's about to lose a chess match - turns the entire board upside down and walks away.
Gen. McCrystal is acting like someone who knows his strategy in Afghanistan isn't going so well and is attempting to bail from the scene on his own terms before the whole FUBAR situation blows up in his face.
He appears to want to get fired in order to get out of Dodge before Dodge explodes.
That's what it looks (& smells) like.
The question everyone is asking is: Why would someone who has to be street-smart to rise to the rank of General and commanding officer in Afghanistan do something so street-dumb as to make those comments in Rolling Stone?
The only thing I can conclude is that Gen. McCrystal is trying to get fired.
It's like the 7-year old kid who realizes he's about to lose a chess game and, instead, turns the chessboard upside down and leave the room rather than concede defeat.
Things aren't going so well in Afghanistan, and the whole look (& smell of it) appears to be that Gen. McChrystal wants to get out of Dodge before Dodge blows up in his face and makes him looks bad.
At least, that's the way I see it.