Too Rolling Stoned

Rolling Stone will probably get around to publishing their piece on General Stanley McChrystal sooner rather than later - for now the powers that be there are probably reveling in the advance publicity.

Appropriately enough, the article has already been leaked in full. (And I've read the whole thing.) While we wait for their release, here's an already much-misquoted excerpt:

The next morning, McChrystal and his team gather to prepare for a speech he is giving at the École Militaire, a French military academy. The general prides himself on being sharper and ballsier than anyone else, but his brashness comes with a price: Although McChrystal has been in charge of the war for only a year, in that short time he has managed to piss off almost everyone with a stake in the conflict. Last fall, during the question-and-answer session following a speech he gave in London, McChrystal dismissed the counterterrorism strategy being advocated by Vice President Joe Biden as "shortsighted," saying it would lead to a state of "Chaos-istan." The remarks earned him a smackdown from the president himself, who summoned the general to a terse private meeting aboard Air Force One. The message to McChrystal seemed clear: Shut the fuck up, and keep a lower profile.

Now, flipping through printout cards of his speech in Paris, McChrystal wonders aloud what Biden question he might get today, and how he should respond. "I never know what's going to pop out until I'm up there, that's the problem," he says. Then, unable to help themselves, he and his staff imagine the general dismissing the vice president with a good one-liner.

"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal says with a laugh. "Who's that?"

"Biden?" suggests a top adviser. "Did you say: Bite Me?"

Having been once bitten on the topic, they're prepping to deflect possible questions about the vice president - and clearly joking. But such insider humor is best not shared with reporters, and is most definitely best left to non-military members of the administration:

Less than a month into the Obama presidency, Biden forthrightly, if unwisely, declared that the new administration's economic plan had a "30 percent chance" of failure. Asked about this at a press conference, Obama smiled thinly and answered, "You know, I don't remember what Joe was referring to, not surprisingly." Obama's staffers, who were lined up along the back wall at the presser, snickered along with the press.

Biden felt insulted. Through staffers, Obama apologized, protesting that he had meant no disrespect. But at one of their regularly scheduled weekly lunches, Biden directly raised the incident with the president. The veep said he was trying to be more disciplined about his own remarks, but he asked that in return the president refrain from making fun (and require his staff to do likewise). He made the point that even the impression that the president was dissing him was not only bad for Biden, but bad for the administration. The conversation cleared the air, according to White House aides who did not want to be identified discussing a private -conversation.

To demonstrate their palship (and dampen the rumors of disaffection between them), the president and vice president were photographed at one point, sleeves rolled up, eating hamburgers together.

But with the Rolling Stone story - and even with several stories already reporting (with varying degrees of accuracy) the Rolling Stone story, the president is confronted with multiple challenges - not the least of which is to what degree a magazine more focused on shaping opinion on Lady GaGa or the Jonas Brothers will determine the future course of American efforts in Afghanistan. If the answer is "a lot," or if Team Obama views Rolling Stone as a critical ally that must be kept at all costs, well, there's always room under the Obama bus for one more.

But while the bulk of the article is designed to stoke the fears of the anti-war left (and really, there's no denying that description can be applied to the bulk of the RS demographic), it also contains a strong appeal to the growing "anti-war right." Pre-publication descriptions of the article include mention of a growing number of troops dissatisfied with the rules of engagement in Afghanistan. That's true, but those who would advance that argument will have to overlook key graf from the actual story (though doing so will be easy enough):

The rules handed out here are not what McChrystal intended - they've been distorted as they passed through the chain of command - but knowing that does nothing to lessen the anger of troops on the ground. "Fuck, when I came over here and heard that McChrystal was in charge, I thought we would get our fucking gun on," says Hicks, who has served three tours of combat. "I get COIN. I get all that. McChrystal comes here, explains it, it makes sense. But then he goes away on his bird, and by the time his directives get passed down to us through Big Army, they're all fucked up - either because somebody is trying to cover their ass, or because they just don't understand it themselves. But we're fucking losing this thing."

To the political left General McChrystal is a pariah, a guy who usurps the authority of the president; to the right he's a pariah, a guy who does the president's bidding in Afghanistan. The truth doesn't much matter at this point - in the end (and we seem to be moving ever closer to the end) the anti-war right and the anti-war left combined are an irresistible force, whether either side acknowledges the other as fellow travelers is immaterial to the outcome they'll inevitably achieve.

(Update: Rolling Stone has now published the full article online here.)

There's no denying the Rolling Stone story is one of a train wreck - or at least one of a train so far off the tracks that something horrific is seemingly moments away. What's missing - in spite of the length of the article and the considerable time the author spent with the subjects - is any real insight to the cause of that disaster.

That's a story still to be told. Having tracked it here in progress, it shouldn't take too long to tell...

Next: Secretary Gates' Statement