There are lots of people calling for McChrystal's head...Alan Grayson has a diary up calling for his head. Dana Milbank has an article today talking about how the President is doomed, Doomed, DOOOMED if he doesn't fire McChrystal. He even sites examples of Republican rudeness...can you believe that? Republicans will be rude to the president!?! Oh, dear! Never... Surely you lie!
More panty-twisting after the jump...
As I understand it, this "interview" took place in a bar, where the General and others were drinking. It wasn't a sit-down interview where the General said, "The vice-president can bite me." It was stupid of him to talk like that, given that there was a reporter in their group laughing along with them. But that's it...just stupidity. It wasn't an insurrection.
This isn't about respect, people. Republicans are going to continue to push the envelope in that department, regardless of what happens. If President Obama fires McChrystal, they'll claim he can't control his troops, has no respect in the military, and use it as a campaign slogan for the fall. If McChrystal stays, they'll claim (as their mouthpiece Milbank does) that he's weak.
President Obama doesn't have to fire McChrystal. And he certainly doesn't have to listen to Alan Grayson (whom I like most times) or Dana fuckin' Milbank.
General McChrystal is a soldier. He needs to act like one. President Obama is his commanding officer. He can order McChrystal back to Afghanistan to do the job he was hired to do, and, if McChrystal refuses, court-martial his fucking ass.
That's it. Make an announcement that General McChrystal has apologized for being an asshole when he was drunk, will do three days of KP and six hundred push-ups, and will be on-site managing the Afghanistan effort for the next 15 months with as much "travel time" as any other deployed GI gets.
Let the critics try to call him a pussy then.
Update [2010-6-23 13:39:1 by darthstar]: I've stricken the bits of this diary most people found objectionable. Oy.