Profiles in Fucktatude: General Stanley McChrystal

Well, talk about a turn of events - suddenly, the General in charge of the Afghanistan campaign is quoted in Rolling Stone criticizing the President, and is being recalled to Washington.  And by recalled, I mean the General was told under no uncertain terms to get his ass on a plane to DC ASAP.  While I'm not sure what will happen to McChrystal when he gets here, I sure as hell don't want to him right now.

Let's face it, Obama has easily moved into the most-shit-on President sweepstakes. I'm not saying he's the most shit upon, but he's definitely in the top five or six (FDR, Hoover, Lincoln, Bush, and maybe Madison).  He starts off having to rescue the economy, fix health care, deal with the BP oil disaster, fight two wars, and deal with the morons in Congress.  All the while, he also has to fend off accusations that he is a foreign Manchurian candidate who's going to turn over the country to the Islamists Socialists. Ugh.  Hell, even I've criticized his actions.

In other words, this guy probably has A LOT of reserved anger (which, by the way, I'm okay with him playing golf and basketball - he needs to get the anger out so he doesn't bomb some poor country into the stone age).  And here comes McChrystal criticizing him, not for substantive issues, but because Obama took time to listen to other opinions BEFORE GIVING MCCRYSTAL EVERYTHING HE WANTED.

So, as McChrystal makes the slow flight back to DC, Obama is going to seriously think about what he's going to do with the General.  His options are: 1) fire the guy immediately; 2) hear McCrystal out, and after getting the General to grovel, keep him on; or, 3) Be a total dick.

Given that McChrystal is coming back to DC, option 1 is out of the question.  Option 2 is still possible, but if I were McCrystal, I wouldn't bet on it.  If I had to bet, I'd bet that Obama will go with Option 3 - be a total dick.  He's going to make McCrystal grovel for his job, let him twist in the wind for a week, and then reassign him to the most humiliating job Obama can find.  And if McChrystal tries to resign, Obama will refuse the resignation (he can do that).

Now, in reality, Obama will probably not go as far as I just did, but he can.  And the problem with being a maverick like McChrystal is that there isn't anyone to back him up.  Thus, I'm fairly certain that McChrystal is going to get a taste of the shit Obama has been eating.  Good luck, General, you're going to need it.

Moral of the story - Never purposely shit on your boss when your boss is getting shit-on by the world.

UPDATE - McChyrstal has offered his resignation, and Obama has refused to consider it until after he speaks with the General directly.  My new bold prediction is that Obama gets his pound of flesh tomorrow, and then accepts the resignation.

What's Chapping My Ass This Week: On Tiger Woods, Afghanistan, and Gay Marriage

Now, if I was a more fastidious blogger, I wouldn't have to do these compound posts. But the realities of my profession (not just the stress, but the time necessary to come down from said stress), is such that I don't blog as much as a I should. So, again, without further ado, I'm unveiling a new-ish feature on this blog: What's chapping my ass this week. Its a feature dedicated to whatever the hell bugs me.

Tiger Woods: I have to admit that I'm following this story for the sheer spectacle of the thing. Watching Tiger Woods the past few days is like watching Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, etc. And to be honest, when I first heard the news, I assumed that Woods was drunk. After all, why else would someone drive into a tree at 2:30 a.m.? Being caught by your wife cheating (allegedly) is a pretty good reason too. But here's what chaps my ass - people are saying that Tiger Woods should apologize, as if he owes the world something or another. That's completely ridiculous. Tiger Woods is a golfer and a corporate spokesman. He doesn't tell people how to live their lives, he doesn't necessarily hold himself out as a perfect person, and he certainly doesn't moralize about other people's choices. So, who cares what the man does with his time? Well, his wife does - and believe me, its going to hurt if she divorces him - but I certainly don't feel betrayed. And neither should you (provided, of course, that you're not related to Tiger Woods or his wife).

Gay Marriage: Speaking of moralizing. . .Actually, this post has less to do with gay marriage than with the recent happenings in Uganda. Apparently, Uganda is about to pass a law that would make homosexuality a capital offense. Worse yet, this law comes as the result of lobbying by American Evangelicals. So much for hating the sin but loving the sinner. In the last few days, a Catholic cardinal, in direct opposition to Church doctrine, stated that gays never enter the Kingdom of God.

Here's my point, and what chaps my ass - is that more than a few "protectors of traditional marriage" don't want to protect traditional marriage, but rather, want to recriminalize homosexuality, which I find repugnant. I think that there are basically two types of anti-gay people out there - the ones who see homosexuality as strange and scary, and those who hate gay people. The first type, hopefully, are the majority, and the longer there there is an existing gay culture, the less this type will freak out. If I had to predict anything, I'd predict that same-sex marriage will be legal in all 50 states at some point in my lifetime. But that said, we can't forget the second type - those that have taken hatred into their hearts and call it religion.

Afghanistan To be honest, I'm entirely conflicted about Afghanistan. On one hand, I want to see Osama bin Laden, Muhammed Omar and every other Al Qaeda bastard dragged through the streets of New York and then ritually killed. . .err. . .given a "fair trial," and then sentenced to death. Went too far with my Italian roots. Sorry everyone, sorry. At the same time, Afghanistan is the epitome of a quagmire and I don't want the U.S. to stay there any longer than absolutely necessary. That said, what chaps my ass here is that if we took Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora, like we could have, we wouldn't need to be in Afghanistan.