The crazy, nutty position taken by Obama & the State Dept. regarding Honduras (in favor of the constitutionally ousted president who wanted to be dictator; opposed to the legal process that protected Honduras democracy) seems downright bizarre.
It becomes less bizarre when you consider the architects of that policy, leftists in charge of US policy, including Hilary, but particularly the controversial State Dept. Legal Advisor, Harold Koh.
Too many of Obama's nominees and czar's have been controversial appointments with radical; leftist and socialist (or worse) pedigrees. Too many have skated by without proper vetting, discussion or scrutiny. And with regard to Honduras, and other matters as well, we are seeing the disturbing implications in US policy.
Read on ... it is interesting, disturbing and outrageous.
More Stonewalling from the Most Transparent Administration in History [Andy McCarthy]
So much for the "unprecedented level of openness in Government" promised by our Nobel Laureate in Chief. While Attorney General Eric Holder continues stonewalling the Civil Rights Commission on the Justice Department's stunning dismissal of the civil rights case against the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia, we now learn the State Department is stonewalling Congress on the legal reasoning behind the administration's support for Chavez-wannabe, Manuel Zelaya.
Senator Jim Demint writes in the Wall Street Journal about his factfinding visit to Honduras, where Zelaya — a thuggish would-be dictator who was trying to destroy the rule of law in his country — was ousted as president in a manner consistent with the Honduran constitution. The Obama administration — which couldn't roll over fast enough when Ahmadinejad had to steal the already-rigged Iranian "election" and the regime brutally jailed, tortured and killed dissenters — is playing hardball with Honduras (at least when it's not slapping Israel and the Dalai Lama around), demanding that the thug be restored to power. But, as Sen. Demint notes, "the only thorough examination of the facts to date—conducted by a senior analyst at the Law Library of Congress—confirms the legality and constitutionality of Mr. Zelaya's ouster. (It's on the Internet here .)"
So why is the administration bullying a poor, tiny, Western democracy?
Demint continues:
In a day packed with meetings, we met only one person in Honduras who opposed Mr. Zelaya's ouster, who wishes his return, and who mystifyingly rejects the legitimacy of the November elections: U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens. When I asked Ambassador Llorens why the U.S. government insists on labeling what appears to the entire country to be the constitutional removal of Mr. Zelaya a "coup," he urged me to read the legal opinion drafted by the State Department's top lawyer, Harold Koh. As it happens, I have asked to see Mr. Koh's report before and since my trip, but all requests to publicly disclose it have been denied. [Emphasis added.]
As Ed Whelan and I pointed out when Koh was up for confirmation, the former Yale Law School dean is the nation's leading transnationalist. He has zero respect for national constitutions (including ours), preferring a post-sovereign order in which international law profs, transnational organizations, and free-lancing judges will be our overlords. What is happening with Honduras is exactly what anyone who familiarized himself with Koh's record would have predicted. Yet, he was confirmed by a 62-35 margin, with support from the usual GOP suspects: Lugar, Voinovich, Snowe, Collins, and Martinez.
Will these Republicans who helped foist Koh on us now join others demanding that President Transparency release Koh's legal opinion on Honduras? (I won't ask about the 19 Republican Senators who thought Holder would be a fabulous, non-political Attorney General ...)
Jen Rubin has thoughts at Contentions.
Stonewalling and Harold Koh [Ed Whelan]
Andy, I’ll just add that leading D.C. lawyer (and Honduras native) Miguel Estrada, who has explained in detail that the ouster of former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya was lawful, has passed along to me his judgment that the Law Library of Congress report is “basically right.” Estrada, who has previously condemned the Obama administration’s shameful betrayal of the rule of law, also criticizes the fact that State Department legal adviser Harold Koh’s analysis remains hidden:
In a democracy the [State Department] Legal Adviser ought not to write a secret analysis of publicly available documents solely because he does not have the gumption to expose his reasoning process and conclusions to public scrutiny.
On any issue on which Estrada and Koh are in disagreement, I’d be willing to bet big that Estrada has it right. But let’s have Koh’s analysis made public immediately so that serious analysis of the competing positions can take place.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Too Ridiculous for Words: Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize
It must have been a result of all of his accomplishes as covered last week on SNL !
Even Nobel watchers are "stunned". http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_nobel_peace
Of course, the Nobel committee long ago went off the reservation and completely politicized their mandate, but this is just silly. Maybe Nobel is trying to give ObamaCare a boost.
Obama joins a long list of worthies including master terrorist and murderer Yasir Arafat.
Even Nobel watchers are "stunned". http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_nobel_peace
Of course, the Nobel committee long ago went off the reservation and completely politicized their mandate, but this is just silly. Maybe Nobel is trying to give ObamaCare a boost.
Obama joins a long list of worthies including master terrorist and murderer Yasir Arafat.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Smoke & Mirrors - ObamaCare style
The so-called Baucus plan and its CBO scoring is a complete farce; it will cost $800 Billion at least, and raise taxes and ration care. The spinning due to the tricks they played to game it to how CBO would score it is pathetic. It is what it is ... a bad idea.
Redefining 'Saving' [Yuval Levin]
Judging from today's papers and the left-leaning blogosphere, the Democratic line on yesterday’s CBO report is that it shows the bill “saves money.” Saves money? Let's be clear: The Baucus bill proposes to spend more than $800 billion in the midst of an explosion of federal spending and debt to create a new entitlement program, the cost of which CBO says will grow at more than 8 percent a year (faster than health care costs grow now), and to raise taxes by almost $200 billion in the midst of a recession. It then proposes to make up the difference by massive cuts in Medicare which, as CBO notes, are unlikely to actually materialize.
Grassley: The 'Untold Story' of the CBO Report [Robert Costa]
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R., Iowa), the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, tells NRO that the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) score of the health-care bill sponsored by committee chairman Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.) has “a huge, untold story.”
As the Baucus bill heads for a vote next Tuesday, Grassley cautions that the CBO report is based only upon “conceptual language” and “the plain English of what the bill hopes to accomplish.”
“The conceptual language is the big caveat of the CBO report,” says Grassley. “When we get the stated legal language, things may vary quite a bit. The CBO analysis is preliminary, and just makes the Baucus bill, with all of its warts, seem a little better than the bills coming from Speaker Pelosi in the House and HELP,” the Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
“The huge, untold story of this CBO report is that for the 85 percent of the people that have health insurance, their premiums will still go up because there will be a new tax on insurance policies,” says Grassley. “People may say, ‘What’s wrong with taxing insurance companies?’ but remember, corporations don’t pay taxes, people pay taxes. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation says that these premiums will be passed on.”
“Even though the CBO says the bill will cost $829 billion, a lot of its savings come from Medicare, which I don’t think is right,“ says Grassley. “We could also end up spending all of this money only to see taxes increase, and premiums increase, and still have 25 million people uninsured.”
“I don’t like [the Baucus bill], and I won’t for vote it,” says Grassley. “The Democrats think it looks so much better, but it still has got a lot of things in it that concern me. It has this federal mandate, which gives the federal government a massive new role in health care. It has an individual mandate, where if you don’t buy insurance, you end up paying a ‘penalty’ to the IRS. They don’t call it a tax increase, but don’t we pay taxes to the IRS?”
For now, Grassley says that he is working to convince centrist Democrats about the flaws in the Baucus bill and other plans. “Eight or nine Democrats seem to have some questions, for different reasons, that relate to the public option or trillion-dollar costs,” says Grassley. “When we already have a great deal of debt, if [centrist Democrats] really want to make changes, and don’t vote for cloture, then they have a real opportunity to force changes in this bill, to get rid of the radical elements.”
Neither raising taxes nor spending $800 billion constitutes saving money. Creating a huge new entitlement doesn't either. Each of the elements of the proposal is a bad idea in itself, and the combination — carefully calibrated with staggered start-dates and assorted gimmicks to look roughly deficit neutral in the ten-year window CBO has to look at — is a colossally expensive step toward a colossally inefficient health-care system.
Krauthammer on the CBO scoring of the Baucus health-care bill:
Look, the CBO scoring, the numbers that came in, the blessing it gave — is because of smoke and mirrors in the bill. For the people of Wichita, somebody has to wade into the weeds. I did it at great health risk.
Two items here. One of them is the $120 billion assumed of income from what are called "fees" of the big players in health care — the health insurers, the drug companies, the guys who do diagnostics and who produce the medical equipment.
The fee is a tax, and the tax, $120 billion, is going to end up out of your pocket and mine, because every penny of it will be in higher insurance, higher costs for drugs, for stents — any kind of medical devices — and for diagnostics. Everybody will pay.
But it's hidden. It is a cowardly way to do a tax. You do it on the industry and it is passed on.
Secondly, there are individual mandates. People are going to be shelling out a huge amount every year on insurance, and those who don't are going to have to pay a fine, also a tax, but under another name.
There are huge costs in here, which are all hidden, and that's why it looks OK.
And secondly, there is a $400 billion assumption of cuts in Medicare. That is not going to happen. It is an illusion. It is a fantasy. And that's why the numbers end up OK.
So if you really look behind all of these numbers, [the Baucus bill ] is a disaster.
Fmr. Obama Speechwriter: 'I Lost My Health Insurance' [NRO Staff]
Wendy Button, a former health-care speechwriter for Barack Obama, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Mayor Tom Menino of Boston, says that she no longer has health insurance.
In a Politics Daily essay, Button details her struggle:
For the first time in my life, I am without health insurance and it is a terrible feeling.In the past, I paid attention to the health care debate as a speechwriter who prepared speeches, talking points, op-eds, and debate prep material on the topic at different times for John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and others. Now, I'm paying attention because I'm a citizen up the creek without a paddle.Since I care more about my country than my personal pride, here's how I lost my insurance: I moved. That's right, I moved from Washington, D.C., back to Massachusetts, a state with universal health care.In D.C., I had a policy with a national company, an HMO, and surprisingly I was very happy with it. I had a fantastic primary care doctor at Georgetown University Hospital.
As a self-employed writer, my premium was $225 a month, plus $10 for a dental discount.In Massachusetts, the cost for a similar plan is around $550, give or take a few dollars. My risk factors haven't changed. I didn't stop writing and become a stunt double. I don't smoke. I drink a little and every once in a while a little more than I should. I have a Newfoundland dog. I am only 41. There has been no change in the way I live my life except my zip code — to a state with universal health care.
More here.
Redefining 'Saving' [Yuval Levin]
Judging from today's papers and the left-leaning blogosphere, the Democratic line on yesterday’s CBO report is that it shows the bill “saves money.” Saves money? Let's be clear: The Baucus bill proposes to spend more than $800 billion in the midst of an explosion of federal spending and debt to create a new entitlement program, the cost of which CBO says will grow at more than 8 percent a year (faster than health care costs grow now), and to raise taxes by almost $200 billion in the midst of a recession. It then proposes to make up the difference by massive cuts in Medicare which, as CBO notes, are unlikely to actually materialize.
Grassley: The 'Untold Story' of the CBO Report [Robert Costa]
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R., Iowa), the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, tells NRO that the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) score of the health-care bill sponsored by committee chairman Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.) has “a huge, untold story.”
As the Baucus bill heads for a vote next Tuesday, Grassley cautions that the CBO report is based only upon “conceptual language” and “the plain English of what the bill hopes to accomplish.”
“The conceptual language is the big caveat of the CBO report,” says Grassley. “When we get the stated legal language, things may vary quite a bit. The CBO analysis is preliminary, and just makes the Baucus bill, with all of its warts, seem a little better than the bills coming from Speaker Pelosi in the House and HELP,” the Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
“The huge, untold story of this CBO report is that for the 85 percent of the people that have health insurance, their premiums will still go up because there will be a new tax on insurance policies,” says Grassley. “People may say, ‘What’s wrong with taxing insurance companies?’ but remember, corporations don’t pay taxes, people pay taxes. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation says that these premiums will be passed on.”
“Even though the CBO says the bill will cost $829 billion, a lot of its savings come from Medicare, which I don’t think is right,“ says Grassley. “We could also end up spending all of this money only to see taxes increase, and premiums increase, and still have 25 million people uninsured.”
“I don’t like [the Baucus bill], and I won’t for vote it,” says Grassley. “The Democrats think it looks so much better, but it still has got a lot of things in it that concern me. It has this federal mandate, which gives the federal government a massive new role in health care. It has an individual mandate, where if you don’t buy insurance, you end up paying a ‘penalty’ to the IRS. They don’t call it a tax increase, but don’t we pay taxes to the IRS?”
For now, Grassley says that he is working to convince centrist Democrats about the flaws in the Baucus bill and other plans. “Eight or nine Democrats seem to have some questions, for different reasons, that relate to the public option or trillion-dollar costs,” says Grassley. “When we already have a great deal of debt, if [centrist Democrats] really want to make changes, and don’t vote for cloture, then they have a real opportunity to force changes in this bill, to get rid of the radical elements.”
Neither raising taxes nor spending $800 billion constitutes saving money. Creating a huge new entitlement doesn't either. Each of the elements of the proposal is a bad idea in itself, and the combination — carefully calibrated with staggered start-dates and assorted gimmicks to look roughly deficit neutral in the ten-year window CBO has to look at — is a colossally expensive step toward a colossally inefficient health-care system.
Krauthammer on the CBO scoring of the Baucus health-care bill:
Look, the CBO scoring, the numbers that came in, the blessing it gave — is because of smoke and mirrors in the bill. For the people of Wichita, somebody has to wade into the weeds. I did it at great health risk.
Two items here. One of them is the $120 billion assumed of income from what are called "fees" of the big players in health care — the health insurers, the drug companies, the guys who do diagnostics and who produce the medical equipment.
The fee is a tax, and the tax, $120 billion, is going to end up out of your pocket and mine, because every penny of it will be in higher insurance, higher costs for drugs, for stents — any kind of medical devices — and for diagnostics. Everybody will pay.
But it's hidden. It is a cowardly way to do a tax. You do it on the industry and it is passed on.
Secondly, there are individual mandates. People are going to be shelling out a huge amount every year on insurance, and those who don't are going to have to pay a fine, also a tax, but under another name.
There are huge costs in here, which are all hidden, and that's why it looks OK.
And secondly, there is a $400 billion assumption of cuts in Medicare. That is not going to happen. It is an illusion. It is a fantasy. And that's why the numbers end up OK.
So if you really look behind all of these numbers, [the Baucus bill ] is a disaster.
Fmr. Obama Speechwriter: 'I Lost My Health Insurance' [NRO Staff]
Wendy Button, a former health-care speechwriter for Barack Obama, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Mayor Tom Menino of Boston, says that she no longer has health insurance.
In a Politics Daily essay, Button details her struggle:
For the first time in my life, I am without health insurance and it is a terrible feeling.In the past, I paid attention to the health care debate as a speechwriter who prepared speeches, talking points, op-eds, and debate prep material on the topic at different times for John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and others. Now, I'm paying attention because I'm a citizen up the creek without a paddle.Since I care more about my country than my personal pride, here's how I lost my insurance: I moved. That's right, I moved from Washington, D.C., back to Massachusetts, a state with universal health care.In D.C., I had a policy with a national company, an HMO, and surprisingly I was very happy with it. I had a fantastic primary care doctor at Georgetown University Hospital.
As a self-employed writer, my premium was $225 a month, plus $10 for a dental discount.In Massachusetts, the cost for a similar plan is around $550, give or take a few dollars. My risk factors haven't changed. I didn't stop writing and become a stunt double. I don't smoke. I drink a little and every once in a while a little more than I should. I have a Newfoundland dog. I am only 41. There has been no change in the way I live my life except my zip code — to a state with universal health care.
More here.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Newt: Obama is a Con Job" on the scale of Madoff !
And he has a point ...
Gingrich: ‘Worse than Chamberlain’ [Robert Costa]
An excerpt from NRO’s interview with former House speaker Newt Gingrich:
If power in America continues to move away from the people, Gingrich says that the country risks “actually eliminating the uniqueness that has made America an exceptional nation. You begin drift into a world where nothing is stable.”
“The modern Left is essentially proto-totalitarian,” says Gingrich. President Obama, he says, is “an authentic representative of the intelligentsia. I think he likes Reveille for Radicals for a reason; he likes William Ayers for a reason. He didn’t notice 20 years of sermons for a reason.”
But is Obama that different from liberals like George McGovern? “Oh, yeah,” says Gingrich.
“My sense is with McGovern, unequivocally, that he was a man from a different world. McGovern was a man who had grown up in pre-World War II America. And he grew up in South Dakota. Obama really grew up in the world of the modern American intelligentsia — he is a person of the left. The minute you accept that, you understand almost everything.”
Obama, Gingrich adds, “is a radical in the sense that the victory of those values would mean the end of American civilization as we know it.”
President Reagan, in contrast, he says, “was a radical within the American tradition. He was almost like the Jacksonian uprising against the establishment. Reagan represented a fundamental break with the dominant system of government for the last 60 years. He didn’t quite pull it off. He managed to defeat the Soviet Empire and managed to renew the energy of entrepreneurial America, but he did not in fact change the underlying crisis.”
In 2008, Americans, says Gingrich, “were voting for the end of Bush. They were voting to have no taxes raised on anybody making under $250,000 and they were voting for a tax cut for 95 percent of the American people. Go back and read what Obama campaigned on. This is a con job on the scale of Madoff.” . . .
Looking to Afghanistan, Gingrich says “the real underlying challenge is that this is a much bigger problem than people understand. You can pull out of Afghanistan, and then what? You want to pull out of Pakistan? Fine. And then what? We pulled out of Somalia, and now we have pirates. You think these guys are going away? Or, do you think that this will become a bigger problem? It’s like dealing with Iran. The last few weeks have been worse than Chamberlain. This is Baldwin in 1935, just willfully blind because he didn’t want to tell the British people the truth because it would offend them.”
Gingrich: ‘Worse than Chamberlain’ [Robert Costa]
An excerpt from NRO’s interview with former House speaker Newt Gingrich:
If power in America continues to move away from the people, Gingrich says that the country risks “actually eliminating the uniqueness that has made America an exceptional nation. You begin drift into a world where nothing is stable.”
“The modern Left is essentially proto-totalitarian,” says Gingrich. President Obama, he says, is “an authentic representative of the intelligentsia. I think he likes Reveille for Radicals for a reason; he likes William Ayers for a reason. He didn’t notice 20 years of sermons for a reason.”
But is Obama that different from liberals like George McGovern? “Oh, yeah,” says Gingrich.
“My sense is with McGovern, unequivocally, that he was a man from a different world. McGovern was a man who had grown up in pre-World War II America. And he grew up in South Dakota. Obama really grew up in the world of the modern American intelligentsia — he is a person of the left. The minute you accept that, you understand almost everything.”
Obama, Gingrich adds, “is a radical in the sense that the victory of those values would mean the end of American civilization as we know it.”
President Reagan, in contrast, he says, “was a radical within the American tradition. He was almost like the Jacksonian uprising against the establishment. Reagan represented a fundamental break with the dominant system of government for the last 60 years. He didn’t quite pull it off. He managed to defeat the Soviet Empire and managed to renew the energy of entrepreneurial America, but he did not in fact change the underlying crisis.”
In 2008, Americans, says Gingrich, “were voting for the end of Bush. They were voting to have no taxes raised on anybody making under $250,000 and they were voting for a tax cut for 95 percent of the American people. Go back and read what Obama campaigned on. This is a con job on the scale of Madoff.” . . .
Looking to Afghanistan, Gingrich says “the real underlying challenge is that this is a much bigger problem than people understand. You can pull out of Afghanistan, and then what? You want to pull out of Pakistan? Fine. And then what? We pulled out of Somalia, and now we have pirates. You think these guys are going away? Or, do you think that this will become a bigger problem? It’s like dealing with Iran. The last few weeks have been worse than Chamberlain. This is Baldwin in 1935, just willfully blind because he didn’t want to tell the British people the truth because it would offend them.”
Monday, October 5, 2009
Obama vs. the Military over Afghanistan
Obama continues to dither, letting stupid leftist politics trump policy.
If you had to choose between McChrystal / Petraeus plan, or a so-called "Biden Plan" (roflmao), what would you choose ?!
Charles Krauthammer On the developing rift between Gen. McChrystal and the Obama administration on Afghanistan:
We are looking at a crisis of military-civilian relations. McChrystal was in London. He was asked a question specifically about a plan that is almost identical to what the Biden proposal is, and he said, as we saw in that clip, do you think it will work?
No.
Will you support it?
No.
Now that is really near the edge of pressure on the White House. Now, McChrystal may or may not have had a hand in the leak of the original report, but what he said today is a challenge.
Now, Newsweek reports that he has said that if he is given a different strategy, he will not resign. I'm not sure I believe that. I understand why he would say it. If he were to say otherwise today, it would look like a threat and a kind of blackmail. But I cannot imagine that if his plan is rejected and if he is ordered to proceed on a plan which he has said now in public in London cannot succeed – how, in good honor, could he send his troops into battle with a plan [he says] would fail?
I think he would resign. And that would be a crisis for the Obama administration.
Can This Relationship Be Saved? [NRO Staff]
London Telegraph:
According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week.
The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago's unsuccessful Olympic bid. . . .
An adviser to the administration said: "People aren't sure whether McChrystal is being naïve or an upstart. To my mind he doesn't seem ready for this Washington hard-ball and is just speaking his mind too plainly."
In London, Gen McChrystal, who heads the 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan as well as the 100,000 Nato forces, flatly rejected proposals to switch to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces operations against al-Qaeda.
He told the Institute of International and Strategic Studies that the formula, which is favoured by Vice-President Joe Biden, would lead to "Chaos-istan".
Where's Petraeus? [NRO Staff]
New York Times:
WASHINGTON — Gen. David H. Petraeus, the face of the Iraq troop surge and a favorite of former President George W. Bush, spoke up or was called upon by President Obama “several times” during the big Afghanistan strategy session in the Situation Room last week, one participant says, and will be back for two more meetings this week. . . .
But the general’s closest associates say that underneath the surface of good relations, the celebrity commander faces a new reality in Mr. Obama’s White House: He is still at the table, but in a very different seat. . . .
The change has fueled speculation in Washington about whether General Petraeus might seek the presidency in 2012. His advisers say that it is absurd — but in immediate policy terms, it means there is one less visible advocate for the military in the administration’s debate over whether to send up to 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.
General Petraeus’s aides now privately call him “Dave the Dull,” and say he has largely muzzled himself from the fierce public debate about the war to avoid antagonizing the White House, which does not want pressure from military superstars and is wary of the general’s ambitions in particular.
If you had to choose between McChrystal / Petraeus plan, or a so-called "Biden Plan" (roflmao), what would you choose ?!
Charles Krauthammer On the developing rift between Gen. McChrystal and the Obama administration on Afghanistan:
We are looking at a crisis of military-civilian relations. McChrystal was in London. He was asked a question specifically about a plan that is almost identical to what the Biden proposal is, and he said, as we saw in that clip, do you think it will work?
No.
Will you support it?
No.
Now that is really near the edge of pressure on the White House. Now, McChrystal may or may not have had a hand in the leak of the original report, but what he said today is a challenge.
Now, Newsweek reports that he has said that if he is given a different strategy, he will not resign. I'm not sure I believe that. I understand why he would say it. If he were to say otherwise today, it would look like a threat and a kind of blackmail. But I cannot imagine that if his plan is rejected and if he is ordered to proceed on a plan which he has said now in public in London cannot succeed – how, in good honor, could he send his troops into battle with a plan [he says] would fail?
I think he would resign. And that would be a crisis for the Obama administration.
Can This Relationship Be Saved? [NRO Staff]
London Telegraph:
According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week.
The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago's unsuccessful Olympic bid. . . .
An adviser to the administration said: "People aren't sure whether McChrystal is being naïve or an upstart. To my mind he doesn't seem ready for this Washington hard-ball and is just speaking his mind too plainly."
In London, Gen McChrystal, who heads the 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan as well as the 100,000 Nato forces, flatly rejected proposals to switch to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces operations against al-Qaeda.
He told the Institute of International and Strategic Studies that the formula, which is favoured by Vice-President Joe Biden, would lead to "Chaos-istan".
Where's Petraeus? [NRO Staff]
New York Times:
WASHINGTON — Gen. David H. Petraeus, the face of the Iraq troop surge and a favorite of former President George W. Bush, spoke up or was called upon by President Obama “several times” during the big Afghanistan strategy session in the Situation Room last week, one participant says, and will be back for two more meetings this week. . . .
But the general’s closest associates say that underneath the surface of good relations, the celebrity commander faces a new reality in Mr. Obama’s White House: He is still at the table, but in a very different seat. . . .
The change has fueled speculation in Washington about whether General Petraeus might seek the presidency in 2012. His advisers say that it is absurd — but in immediate policy terms, it means there is one less visible advocate for the military in the administration’s debate over whether to send up to 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.
General Petraeus’s aides now privately call him “Dave the Dull,” and say he has largely muzzled himself from the fierce public debate about the war to avoid antagonizing the White House, which does not want pressure from military superstars and is wary of the general’s ambitions in particular.
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