Whose Ass to Kick?

June 23, 2010 9:11 PM

It took him a while, but Obama finally figured out whose ass to kick. It couldn't have been an oil executive or anyone connected with the destruction of the Gulf Coast economy, because that would remind people of Obama's negligence on that matter. It couldn't have been a talk show host like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity, because an attack on them would just feed more raw meat to the tea party crowd. It couldn't have been anybody respected in the left-wing blogosphere, even if personally disliked by Obama and his staff. So who'd be left? A military man, obviously. But not a military man back from a triumphant conquest. Julius Caesar's rivals tried that stunt by kicking Julius' ass (assassinating him, actually) and Rome ended up in about 25 years of civil war. So it would have to be a military man in command of a place where any kind of triumph is highly unlikely: such a place as Afghanistan.

The ass that Obama decided to kick was attached to the body of Gen. Stanley Allen McChrystal, a west Point grad and Special Forces vet who had served, among many other places, in South Korea as an intelligence and operations officer (1981). The fourth sentence in his current Wikipedia bio begins,"McChrystal was reportedly known for saying and thinking what other military leaders are afraid to," which was possibly another reason to pick his ass as the one to be kicked. Was McChrystal reckless by giving an interview to Rolling Stone? Was he set up? As a South Korea vet who knew all about MacArthur, did he decide to go out in a blaze of glory by emulating the popular World War II general?

Or did he do it as a politically correct way of falling on his sword because he knew that his politically correct Afghanistan policy was destined for failure? Or all of the above? We will probably never know.

But why should Obama even bother to kick ass, let alone that of a tough, widely respected military man? (General Petraeus, who will replace McChrystal as the Afghanistan commander, had recommended him to Obama.) That's easy: it is an open secret that Obama is a wuss, a weakling, a cream-puff, a soft touch, a linguini-spined not-too-bright community organizer. Obama, then, had to look tough. He had to look ballsy. And: what better way to look ballsy than to recall a ballsy commander from Afghanistan, subject him to a 30-minute "woodshed" session, and then ceremonially fire him in a Rose Garden photo op. And so, McChrystal was fired. Did that convince you that Obama is a ballsy guy? Frankly, it didn't convince me.

While that bit of political theater was going on, the press was distracted from the Gulf Coast, the Iran nukes, the North Korean nukes (more about them later), the Great Obama Depression, and major flouting of the US Constitution.

The Obama-loving Mainstream Media wrote glowing puff pieces about how Obama was another Truman, heroic in his decision to fire General MacArthur for being openly critical of Democrat party policy. The "liberal" assumption, of course, has long been that MacArthur was wrong and Truman was right. In my view, it is once again time to re-examine that assumption. Back to Wikipedia:

The Truman-MacArthur conflict reportedly began in August of 1950, when Mac Arthur said to a national meeting of a veteran's group: "Nothing could be more fallacious than the threadbare argument by those who advocate appeasement and defeatism in the Pacific that if we defend Formosa we alienate continental Asia."

Much more took place before Truman fired MacArthur, but that statement the general made gets right to the core of our (Democrat party) policy towards China, North Korea, and, now, the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Q'aeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah. You see, the A-word is there: appeasement. Interestingly, it is still being debated just how much we should back an independent Taiwan, at the risk of annoying the "People's Republic" of China. It is possible that the Chicoms will call our bluff at any time on that issue with some kind of attack on Taiwan. How would the ballsy Obama deal with that?

However, we do not have to wait for the Chicoms to find out. The North Koreans (who were never defeated) have tested a nuclear weapon, have fired ballistic missiles into the ocean near Japan, and have sunk a South Korean warship. Who do we rely on to "negotiate" with them? The Chicoms.

Do I think that Truman made a mistake by firing MacArthur? I won't go so far as to say "yes" at this point, but bear in mind that the US was the big gorilla on the block throughout the Cold War period and could speak softly because it had a big stick. Now our republic, with its current leadership, is viewed as a gaggle of linguini-spined has-beens. We don't even defend our allies in Poland, Israel, Georgia, and the secular military of Turkey. "Those who advocate appeasement and defeatism" are more influential than ever following the catastrophic national election of 2008.

As I said, then, firing a general may make Obama look ballsy to a few "moderates" but to me, and to Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao, Kim-Il-Sung, Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Recep Tayip Erdogan, and even France's Sarkozy, Obama is still, well… a wuss.