Today President Obama exercised Trumanesque leadership

[bluestateguy]

This will be remembered alongside the latter's dismissal of General MacArthur.

Keeping McChrystal (whose name is very hard to spell) would have greatly weakened this president's authority and weakened the institutional authority of the Commander-in-Chief.

[FrenchieCat]

1. I don't have any faith in history anymore.

Reagan and Carter seem to have ended the notion that history
is recorded correctly. Perhaps in 100 years....but I won't
get to read it. :(

I did just buy the Bridge, the book by Remick a couple of weeks ago.
Great reading thus far. Quite detailed with background. He's a good
writer!

[POAS]

2. ever since I realized that

"history is written by the victors" (many many years ago) my "faith" in history has been extremely tempered. In Christian belief it is taught that one must have the faith of a child, too often that attitude pervades the crowd prone to wrapping themselves in the flag. They never doubt or question the faith they have in an almost "religious" view of American history and their understanding of it.

[quiet.american]

3. What I most admire about the decision is that it is very pragmatic.

For one, there was no way McChrystal could ever appear alongside President Obama again without the entire world thinking about that article, and more importantly, as the president said, the behavior of McChrystal and his aides did not meet military standards - that was the most important thing - it was disgraceful, inexplicable behavior for a general to have engaged in - especially in a time of active military conflicts.

I have to wonder again - was McChrystal blathering drunk at the time? But even if he was, why did he still approve the article's copy at a later date? Nothing McChrystal has said has cleared that up in any way.