The White House is looking for a replacement...Gen. Patraeus according to the AP. You will remember him as the guy that McChrystal replaced. Go figure.
He says he did not offer to resign, but then I think he did. I don’t think POTUS has the balls to fire him, but I could be wrong. Summoned from the battlefield to be spanked…
The issue will probably come down to how true McChrystal’s admission is. If he has really compromised the mission, then it’s time to go, and McChrystal should resign instead of forcing Obama to fire him. If Obama thinks McChrystal’s doing a good job (which is hotly debated at the moment anyway) and feels he can continue to work with the commander even after the childish and reprehensible remarks McChrystal and his team felt comfortable making in public, then Obama will probably stick with him. I predict that McChrystal returns to Afghanistan, if for no other reason than to avoid another confirmation hearing on his replacement and the questions that will arise from it.
Don’t forget, he is a general with thirty years of service and POTUS is a three year community organizer. Who is a military genius? Some more juicy tidbits.
After his 30 minute woodshed moment, he did not return to the 11:30 strategy session. Looks like the thin skinned guy in the WH accepted the resignation? Exit question? Why replace McChrystal with Patraeus…cuz it’s the same road, just a different name. BTW, is this the same guy? Boss Emeritus: “How far we’ve come from the MoveOn/General Betray Us days?” Oh oh, questions about leadership arising now.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/06/23/decide-mcchrystal-afghistan-fired-obama-right/
An Icon Has Died. Nurse Edith Shain on August 14, 1945 in Times Square.
Ever since the Obama White House got rid of that colonial era bust of Sir Winston Churchill on-loan from Great Britain, they’ve been on the lookout for new less offensive art.
Now we learn, thanks to Howard Kurtz on CNN, that Obama adviser David Axelrod made a call to the editor of the New Yorker magazine requesting a copy of the Feb. 1 cover of the magazine showing No. 44 walking on water. (No, not the newly-resurfaced Gulf of Mexico.)
The only stipulation: The cover art had to be autographed by artist Barry Blitt.
via Obama White House loved the magazine cover of him walking on water | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times.
UPDATE: The plot thickens: Toby Harnden of the Telegraph says a source tells him that McChrystal has indeed tendered his resignation and that the White House is “actively discussing a replacement” in case Obama accepts it.
CNN unconfirmed
[Updated at 4:41 p.m.] Gen. Stanley McChrystal has submitted his resignation, Time magazine’s Joe Klein told CNN Monday, citing an unnamed source. CNN is working to confirm Klein’s information.
Accepted by POTUS?
Time is now walking back Klein’s scoop a bit, claiming that McChrystal didn’t actually tender his resignation but offered to do so. Over to you, Barry.
Furious President Obama summons Gen. Stanley McChrystal to D.C. I guess POTUS B+ is really a big fat F.
Enjoy the full PDF here. Or direct from the horse’s patoot.
What McChrystal and his aides said about Obama,
Even though he had voted for Obama, McChrystal and his new commander in chief failed from the outset to connect. The general first encountered Obama a week after he took office, when the president met with a dozen senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known as the Tank. According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked “uncomfortable and intimidated” by the roomful of military brass. Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn’t go much better. “It was a 10-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.”
Biden,
Now, flipping through printout cards of his speech in Paris, McChrystal wonders aloud what Biden question he might get today, and how he should respond. “I never know what’s going to pop out until I’m up there, that’s the problem,” he says. Then, unable to help themselves, he and his staff imagine the general dismissing the vice president with a good one-liner.
“Are you asking about Vice President Biden?” McChrystal says with a laugh.
“Who’s that?”
“Biden?” suggests a top adviser. “Did you say: Bite Me?”
Jones,
In private, Team McChrystal likes to talk shit about many of Obama’s top people on the diplomatic side. One aide calls Jim Jones, a retired four-star general and veteran of the Cold War, a “clown” who remains “stuck in 1985.”
Holbrooke,
McChrystal reserves special skepticism for Holbrooke, the official in charge of reintegrating the Taliban. “The Boss says he’s like a wounded animal,” says a member of the general’s team. “Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he’s going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous. He’s a brilliant guy, but he just comes in, pulls on a lever, whatever he can grasp onto. But this is COIN, and you can’t just have someone yanking on shit.”
At one point on his trip to Paris, McChrystal checks his BlackBerry. “Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke,” he groans. “I don’t even want to open it.” He clicks on the message and reads the salutation out loud, then stuffs the BlackBerry back in his pocket, not bothering to conceal his annoyance.
“Make sure you don’t get any of that on your leg,” an aide jokes, referring to the e-mail.
Eikenberry
By far the most crucial – and strained – relationship is between McChrystal and Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador. According to those close to the two men, Eikenberry – a retired three-star general who served in Afghanistan in 2002 and 2005 – can’t stand that his former subordinate is now calling the shots. He’s also furious that McChrystal, backed by NATO’s allies, refused to put Eikenberry in the pivotal role of viceroy in Afghanistan, which would have made him the diplomatic equivalent of the general.
and others.
Politicians like McCain and Kerry, says another aide, “turn up, have a meeting with Karzai, criticize him at the airport press conference, then get back for the Sunday talk shows. Frankly, it’s not very helpful.” Only Hillary Clinton receives good reviews from McChrystal’s inner circle. “Hillary had Stan’s back during the strategic review,” says an adviser. “She said, ‘If Stan wants it, give him what he needs.’ ”
More from McChrystal here, a description of his inner circle here.
Has anyone read the Rolling Stone magazine that profiles General Stanley McChrystal? It is McChrystal’s opinion about this administration and Afghanistan. The dirty laundry as most would say. Rule #1 Never do you criticize the boss in public. It sure must have been bad in order for this to have happened.
The thin skinned POTUS has summoned the General to D.C. Any wagers on whether McChrystal takes a hike soon? POTUS doesn’t take long to speak to the General. Remember the last time, he interrupted his very important schedule to speak to him for a whopping twenty minutes. (10 minute photo op) He is said to have thought that Obama felt uncomfortable sitting in a room filled with military honchos.
From across the pond a bit about POTUS:
You don’t get to be elected President of the United States simply for a being a nice guy. You need to be a ruthless, political opportunist, and Mr Obama has these qualities in abundance.
Did you hear that ginormous crash? That is the General’s head falling off. I sure am happy to know that McCrystal recognized the size of the circus in the White House. Question: does Barack still want to be POTUS?
Saturday the oil spill hit the 60th day. Hit the link…28 mind blowing images. These are but a tiny view of what is going on while Tony goes to the yacht races and Barack goes golfing.
Saturday will mark 60 days since the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon and beginning of one of the worst oil spills in history. On Friday, signaling a shift in strategy to fight against the ruptured well in the Gulf, the Coast Guard began ramping up efforts to capture oil closer to shore. Adm. Thad Allen said an estimated 2,000 private boats in the so-called “vessels of opportunity” program will be more closely linked through a tighter command and control structure to direct them to locations less than 50 miles offshore to skim the oil. Allen, the point man for the federal response to the spill, previously had said surface containment efforts would be concentrated much farther offshore. Estimates of the oil being siphoned from the well a mile below the Gulf are growing. Allen said more than 1.2 million gallons was sucked up to containment vessels Thursday.
Left: Oil is burned and skimmed by boats near the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Sunday, June 13, 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico. AP / Eric Gay Right: Oil is burned on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico a few miles from the site of the Deepwater Horizon disaster Wednesday, June 16, 2010. Oil is still leaking from the wellhead. AP / Dave Martin
Oil is burned on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico a few miles from the site of the Deepwater Horizon disaster Wednesday, June 16, 2010. Oil is still leaking from the wellhead. AP / Dave Martin
Oil is burned and skimmed by boats near the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Sunday, June 13, 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico. AP / Eric Gay
Texas Dems Grapple With Their Own Alvin Greene.
Kessha wants Tom Delay’s old seat.
South Carolina’s unexpected Democratic nominee for the US Senate, mystery man Alvin Greene, says he wants to play golf with Barack Obama. But in Texas, another surprise Democratic primary winner, congressional nominee Kesha Rogers, wants to impeach the President.
Kesha Rogers, winner of the U.S. Democratic Party primary election in Texas’s 22nd congressional district. She is a full time political activist. Oh yeah, and she totally opposes the UN. WOOT, you go girl!
H/T BigFurHat@IOTW
