Not sure I'm qualified to judge a man like McChrystal. I know there are some people who think pretty highly of him. I think there are probably a lot of more politically tuned generals who don't like him. I think there are some very very good special ops guys who'd follow him into the mouth of a cannon.

But I just don't know enough about the details of either the Rolling Stone kerfuffel or the Tillman case to really think I could classify his butt as sorry. My guess would be he's a much better than man than a whole lot of the vultures circling the corpse of his career.

I do know, getting back to Woodward, that he comes off rather well in the last Woodward book.

>Some of the military seemed not to understand the concept of chain of command. Gen. MacCrystal actively tried to sabotage administration policies. I was really glad when Obama fired his sorry butt. (You probably know he was also directly involved in the coverup of Pat Tillman's death, which IMO was another firing offense).
>
>>From the little i read in the reviews and a few excerpts it seems like a title that covers both the military conflicts Obama must preside over as part of his job and the struggles within the administration and with the military over the best course to take.
>>
>>I have the book on order and really look forward to it. Woodward gets a lot of access and always seems like he at least tries for some objectivity. His stuff on Bush's wars was pretty good - pretty positive over the beginning of Afghanistan in october 2001 moving to very critical of Rumsfeld and the complete botch of the Iraq "post-war" period.
>>
>>This may be the first really good look inside the decision processes at the Obama White House and I wouldn't be surprised if at least in this area I come out with a more favorable opinion of the President (who I think hides some of his best thinking from his most ardent worshipers )
>>
>>>So many links, so little time ;-)
>>>
>>>I now realize I missed the point of the thread title, even if I suspect it wasn't completely innocent. My mistake.
>>>
>>>>Man, you *really* don't both to even click a link before going into political kool-aid mode -
>>>>
>>>>Obama's Wars is the title of Bob Woodward's new book - releasing monday - and the link to a story about it in the Washington Post
>>>>
>>>>>>Pick your poison:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/21/AR2010092106706_pf.html
>>>>>>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/world/asia/22policy.html
>>>>>
>>>>>Why do you describe Afghanistan as Obama's war? It had been going on for seven years when he took office. He can fairly be criticized for not getting us out of it when he clearly believed that was what should be done. IMO there is no rational reason that Afghanistan has been the longest war in our history. They are not a strategic ally or any other kind of ally. If they want to continue duking it out against all comers they can do that without our involvement.