I’m sure your comments are appreciated in high places.

Stay honest. Don’t fall in to Republican Tar pits.

I tend to trust those who have seen these things up close and know what they look like.

http://turcopolier.typepad.com…..erman.html

If he’s a Republican hack, I’ll eat my hat. If there’s some other reason this guy should be dismissed, I’m all ears. But serious people are looking at this and see a problem. At the least, you should not mock them for concerning themselves with the Republic, to get all (Southern) gothic about it. As you know, in addition to the distinguished-Yale-Law-prof link provided within, Michael Cohen has the opposite view, along with Peter Feaver, whom, though he is a borderline Republican hack, Michael vouches for and calls an expert in civil-military relations. I’m sure you’ve seen all the pieces referenced. I wonder where you have derived your standard of evidence for this question from. With all due respect, more experienced folks than you don’t seem to share it. There’s a good reason for that — an unbalance in civil-mil is something to avoid even a whiff of. If serious people see a problem, you shouldn’t be so dismissive. It goes to legitimacy of the office — something under assault in various other ways currently already. It’s possible we are simply talking about, and seeing, very different things here.

I think you’re not seeing how the “pseudo-controversy” is in fact in this case a vital corrective that set the players back on the right rails — however little they were ever really off. I’m heartened that even the hint of it got serious people (Bruce Ackerman is most definitely not a hack) off their butts and in the op-ed pages.

Spencer: Listen to your left ear.

Here’s how I see it. McChrystal is pure evil. He never has been called to answer for his role in developing torture policies and for implementing them at Camp Nama. He also hid Camp Nama from the ICRC. He never has been called to answer for his role in politically exploiting Pat Tillman’s death and covering up the friendly fire aspect of it. Yes, the current “controversy” of his remarks may be more manufactured than real, but dammit, somehow this one seems to be sticking in the M$M and he’s actually having to struggle. If this can be used as a tool to bring more attention to his real faults, I love it.

Obama dropped Jeremiah Wright over a manufactured controversy. That was wrong. If he fires McChrystal, it’s right, even if it’s over a manufactured controversy. The M$M is letting this careen down a path that might actually get Obama to do something right, if for the wrong reason. I can live with that.

All that said Spencer, I take your point entirely, and I respect the work you’ve put in to document it (and thanks for the exchange). This was no doubt inflated by the media; I regard that as inevitable and in part McChrystal’s responsibility to avoid or defuse, but that’s a normative view. You’ve got the goods on his actual conduct, and those of us concerned have to yield to the facts, however legit we may believe our concern to be. And whether because there never was a problem, or because the right people have set him straight, I expect this not to be a continued issue, so it’s pretty much academic now. I imagine you are right the historians will not conclude that we sat for a few moments last month with our Constitution on the precipice — at least not because of this.

At the risk of stating the obvious, we’ve seen this movie before. Sure, the press coverage is bad – slanted, dishonest and incomplete. But it’s the REASON for the bad coverage that’s important here, not what they SAY but WHY they say it.

Everybody has an agenda. The media figures and pundits that are creating this tempest in the Earl Grey are doing so in order to bring greater political pressure on Obama. To try to make it harder for him to resist the calls for escalation.

People want to influence the outcome, so they spin the facts. You keep shouting into the void that they’re getting the coverage wrong, but it would be worthwhile to start from the premise that they see that as a feature, not a bug…

mikey

I respect everyone’s responses here. But I absolutely can’t co-sign for calling McChrystal “pure evil.” I believe he ought to be investigated for what he actually knew about detainee abuse at Camp Nama, and wrote about that both before and during his June confirmation hearing. But that’s it — I don’t know. We don’t know. That’s different from saying we know he’s a monster. Evidence ought to be gathered. But we can’t draw conclusions before it is.

MikeD, on the question of tone, you’re right. It’s not that I don’t respect the people who’ve viewed this as a problem, even though I find their responses disproportionate to the actual thing-at-question. I will cut out the tone, and appreciate being put in check on the tone question, as I didn’t see it as inappropriate. So thanks for that.

Also, your point about the “useful corrective” — I see where you’re coming from, and half of me wants to go along with it. We should be vigilant about civilian control, and I can see an argument about how there are worse vices than exhibiting a little over-the-top behavior on this one. But I can’t believe it’s fair to apply that in a case where McChrystal is actually singing from the same sheet music as his commander-in-chief.

P.S. Did I say something that a reasonable person would be horrified to have misattributed to them? (Well, okay, I got heated over at the Windy. I regret the invective there. But here?)

Agree on the ‘evil’ comment. Was going to shoot that one down also. And as I said, I take your point fully on the facts.

Okay, maybe “pure evil” is over the top, but why haven’t we seen anything that pushes back on these stories about McChrystal? Where is the suggestion someone else hid NAMA from the ICRC? Where are the stories of the people McChrystal turned over to prosecutors for their role in torture that we know occurred in facilities under his command? These accusations have been around for a long time, and I didn’t see anything offered during the confirmation period that tried to explain these things away. His name just keeps coming up over and over on the worst practices. At some point, it ceases to be a coincidence. I would love to see an actual investigation so that doubts can be removed. If he is cleared, so be it, but I’ll be a very surprised person as I’m eating my hat…

you want fries with that?

Nothing of the sort, and I just wanted to apologize for the misattribution. That’s it & that’s all.

It’s been kind of fascinating watching people get more and more hyperbolic about McCrystal’s public comments. In that car wreck sort of way.

Dude – do not be fooled by the Dark Jedi Michael O’Hanlon. He has this habit of dancing in the middle ground, yet always leaning toward the safe administration position. He leaned toward Bush in that time, and now he’s trying to lean toward Obama by slamming Rumsfeld. That’s academically fraudulent.

“McChrystal is personally responsible for the lives of 100,000 NATO troops who are suffering severe losses partially as a result of eight years of a failed counterterrorism strategy under a different name. He has a right to speak if a policy debate becomes too removed from reality. Put another way, we need to hear from him because he understands this reality far better than most in Washington.”

This is bullshit. McChrystal is too close to the problem, he’s focused on one thing – winning in Afghanistan in a tactical sense, ignoring the corrupt Afghani government, ignoring the Pakistani government’s misuse of billions of US dollars, ignoring the lack of State Dept help. He doesn’t understand the political strategy (not that Obama has stated one clearly and in public) but let’s not pretend that Wash DC is “too removed from reality.” O’Hanlon certainly didn’t point this out between 2002-2008.

BTW, thanks very much for the reference to C&L.

Freedom fries, I’m sure, if they come from you.

Jim, old buddy, I don’t think that you quite understand my thinking or positions.

I do make some fine French fries, but if you need something lower-fat, I can go baked. What kind of hat might you be having?

I don’t think Republicans need help holding McChrystal’s request over Obama. I don’t see how raising the notion that McChrystal may have overstepped his bounds helps them in that. I think it gives Obama more space if anything. What are the suggestions that the rogue-McChrystal meme, however inaccurate (and I never thought he was rogue or insubordinate, only pushing the limits slightly and pretty obviously pressuring the president in public), helps Republicans box in Obama based on? The Republican boxing-in in my view is an inevitable result of McChrystal’s analysis, and discussions of McChrystal’s conduct’s appropriateness entirely an interesting side discussion.

I have one other question. What was the need exactly for Stanley McChrystal to address a think tank in London at that particular time in the first place? Given the atmosphere back here, it would seem obvious that avoiding making headlines with his views on policy would be his responsibility. He should have been able to count on the press getting the story wrong and emphasizing any phrases that support conflict. I don’t remember Petraeus doing similar appearances apart from those associated with his Congressional testimony when back stateside, and I regard thise as almost inevitable (though also obviously part of a concerted PR campaign with the Admin for the Surge. The ‘concerted’ part there was fairly key — propaganda, yes, but not in tension with the Administration.) I’m with Gene Robinson here — if he thought even just the timing of the remarks could be sensitive, he should have clammed up in my view. It’s not the case that he is entirely not responsible for the coverage he gets.