“Let me be McChrystal clear…” (Sorry, couldn’t resist the Obama-ism joke.)

There’s been quite a bit of anger directed at Stanley McChrystal for saying less-than-sweet things about President Obama and his Afghanistan strategy in Rolling Stone. (You can read the article for yourself here.)

Lefties are upset because he criticized Obama and also revealed himself to be unabashedly testosterone-filled, which we all know is simply not jivin’ with the new in-touch-with-our-feelings way. Righties are upset because he spilled all of this to Rolling Stone, of all places, which of course, doesn’t have a favorable view of counter-insurgency, or COIN. (Rush Limbaugh made the tongue-in-cheek point, “If he doesn’t recognize that Rolling Stone is not a friend, how the heck will he recognize the Taliban?)

Now, McChrystal has resigned and we have yet to see if he does turn out to be the Douglas MacArthur to Obama’s Harry Truman, and most people are scratching their heads about what it means and why on Earth McChrystal gave Rolling Stone the interview in the first place.  Here’s my theory: first off, I didn’t think the article was that bad. Sure, NewsMax or National Review would have been a bit more favorable, but everybody who reads those publications already would love McChrystal anyway, no matter what. Readers of conservative publications love the military and Manly Men, and McChrystal is both, so such a piece would have been nothing more than preaching to the choir.

However, by letting a writer from Rolling Stone shadow him for a month and write such an in-depth expose (the piece is six pages long) McChrystal reaches a young, sexy, mostly affluent and well-educated crowd – exactly the demographic who believed unwaveringly that Obama could do no wrong all of a year ago. I felt that the Rolling Stone piece was honest in ways I would have never expected, ways I doubt it would have been even six months ago.  The comments section for the piece registers an even split of positive to negative feedback, some see tough hero, some see horrible jerk. Tomato, Tomahto.

I contend that McChrystal is not a media dummy who got duped into an unfavorable piece. I think he’s a military mastermind who saw his end-goal and his men as far more important than his reputation, and approached this interview as a war-zone, his hard-hitting statements as a surge,  and gave this administration one last chance to let him win a hard-fought war. This was tactical. He knew he’d get dressed down for it, he knew he might have to resign. But I think he considered it his duty to speak out, and so he did it in a place where most of his audience would be forced to think about their beliefs instead of riding comfortably on the wings of ignorance.

Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do. I’m not a military person, so I don’t fully understand the level of respect tendered to one’s superiors, and perhaps McChrystal did overstep his bounds by being openly ornery toward his Commander-in-Chief.

I for one, think that McChrystal just won himself a following. In the wake of such honesty, the American people (hi Conservatives! You too!) need to think about what it means to nation-build and truly fight terror, especially in a financially dicey era.  Do we have the money for such an operation in the first place?

But no matter what, I predict that President Obama’s endless golf games will only get harder for the American people to swallow, the more they know about hard-working men like Stanley McChrystal.

Posted in: Culture with a side of Pop, The First Amendment