Obama Vs. McChrystal?

This week, the Financial Times of London published an article about Barack Obama being livid over the recent speeches and public statements made by General Stanley McChrystal in favor of his method of fighting the war in Afghanistan. Now, I am skeptical of this report. Oliver Willis says it best when he points out the fact that there aren't any cited sources in the article, so it could be an entirely trumped up affair. Still, there is now the perception for those who caught the article that there is infighting in the White House over this issue, and that Obama is fighting with the general he selected to lead the Afghanistan effort.

What I want to say is not a defense of either position, its not even a comment on it, I merely want to bring up a different situation, one in which a sitting president encountered a General who had a different oppinion on a military effort, who spoke to congress honestly about his opinions and who lost his job because of it. My intention here is to provide context for those knee-jerk critics who will jump on Obama for anything and do so with extreme hyperbole. You see, the president and the general in this story are George W. Bush and General Eric Shinseki. Bush was attempting to make the case for an invasion of Iraq, and while he was promising a small, fast invasion that would get us out in a matter of months and pay for itself multiple times over, Erick Shinseki was speaking honestly about what a real occupation of Iraq would involve. Shiseki's numbers were, in fact, far more realistic, as Bush's game changing (ish) surge demonstrated.

I don't want to seem like I am comparing these two situations, they aren't identical by any stretch of the imagination. The fact is, the last president, one republicans praised while he was in office, completely contradicted and dismissed one of his military advisors, and as a result pushed him out of the armed forces. This isn't how things will likely go with Obama, so I want everyone to think about this before they mouth off and act like Obama is doing something new and unprecedented if he does choose to ignore his military commanders. Politics isn't war and civillians run our government for a reason. Unfortunately, in the case of Iraq, Bush ignored the advice of his general without changing strategies, but he was commander in chief, it was his call.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Shinseki