Obama Shows Up ....

All the things he wasn't in his speech about the oil crisis he was in making the announcement about dumping McChrystal. Firm, clear, resolute, determined. Qualities which, of course, the beady eye of the camera lens bores in on intently and irrevocably.  I don't know what it is with this President.  How and why he goes from graceless stumbler one week to the Man In Charge the next.  What I do know is that someone needs to sit him down in front of a television screen at the White House and make him watch himself in both instances. And learn.  He has shown that he is a good and fast learner but it's like he too often forgets his lessons, and leaves his real self at the door.  And he can't afford to keep doing that, anymore than we can continue to believe in him, and support him if he does. 

I am one of the ones who thinks that McChrystal had to go, and now find myself strangely and uncomfortably alligned with the likes of Joltin' Joe Lieberman and his dear friend John McCain, both of whom immediately came out in support of Obama's call.  Lieberman in fact was absolutely lit up with praise by the President's action, almost beside himself. 

Media angles:  Who would have believed that Rolling Stone would suddenly rise, at least temporarily, from the ashes of the sixties and virtual irrelevancy to be the catalyst for all this. However, the issue with the story hasn't come out yet, won't until 2 days from now.  So Rolling Stone has had to make the full article available on-line, where as of this writing, only 22 people have bothered to find it and post comments.  It has not been the magazine itself, which has almost no constituency these days, but the internet bloggers and mainstream media that turned up the heat. And, from what I could see, it was the on-line folks at Talking Points Memo and Politico who today broke the news regarding Obama's decision about McChrystal and Petraeus.  Other media big timers, like the cable news people, the NY Times, and Huff Post, were late getting those details. 

Which leads me to my final points here:  Why would McChrystal and his aides ever have given a reporter such access to their arrogance and mockery? What was the strategy guy's strategy here? In an interview with Newsweek, where he once worked, even the writer says he was surprised. Perhaps as important, why didn't McChrystal, so far as we know, have to clear that access in advance with his bosses in Washington. I also have to wonder how and why the President's final decision about McChrystal and Petraeus was leaked a half hour or so before Obama announced it himself.