Why has Obama only talked General McChrystal once in 70 days?
The military general credited for capturing Saddam Hussein and killing the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq says he has only spoken to President Obama once since taking command of Afghanistan.
“I’ve talked to the president, since I’ve been here, once on a VTC ,” General Stanley McChrystal told CBS reporter David Martin in a television interview that aired Sunday.
“You’ve talked to him once in 70 days?” Mr. Martin followed up.
“That is correct,” the general replied.
This revelation comes amid the explosive publication of an classified report written by the general that said the war in Afghanistan “will likely result in failure” of more troops are not added next year. Yet, the debate over health care reform continues to dominate Washington’s political discussions.
While Obama dithers, Afghanistan continues to deteriorate.
Michelle Malkin hits the nail on the head:
Obama is for “engagement” and “dialogue” with everyone else in the world except his own military commanders.
So much for candidate Obama’s pledge last year to make Afghanistan – what he has called then and now the “central front,” the “war of necessity” (an indirect slap at the war in Iraq) – his top priority in terms of renewing the focus and giving the commanders in the field the resources they need to turn things around there. But then again, none of us are actually surprised, are we?
Jules Crittenden has a link round-up of reax on Obama’s handling of the Obama situation, and himself calls Obama “Obamlet“:
*To troop up or not to troop up: that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?*
Excuse me, just flipping through some Shakespeare and mulling the news, or lack of it, this morning. The ongoing to be or not to be a wartime president that is now the news.
Obama looks more and more like Obamlet every day. What makes this unlike a stage drama and more like a courtroom one, though, is that playwrights usually don’t leave the stage empty this long, with the audience sitting around like lawyers waiting for a verdict. Are we supposed to be encouraged or discouraged by the Obama admin’s footdragging on a decision? Some commentary on that below.
Read the whole thing.