Well, as many of you know, since I last posted, the word is that Obama may or may not accept the resignation. We should know Wednesday.
I can't think of time I've ever been this undecided about a public question. This is one where I can really see both sides. I'm not trying to be cute or counterintuitive or anything. I can see that Obama needs to be the Democrat who seizes an opportunity to lay down the law against a military commander who clearly crossed a line. I can also see that accepting the resignation creates a s---storm of its own kind and may hurt the mission.
Stepping back, it seems to me that this is a really difficult choice between core principles of civilian command over the military on the one hand and on the other...well, I find as I'm writing this, I'm having difficulty formulating the other. I paused there. So maybe there isn't a countervailing principle. Maybe there's just the expediency of not pissing off the Pentagon, not creating disarray, not giving Dick and Liz the chance to pop off, not making a martyr of McChrystal. Actually, in the modern media drenched world, maybe that last one is a principle. Don't make heroes of your enemies.
I think now, everyone expects that Obama is going to let the general stay on. So for that reason if no other one, he ought to can his ass and signal to Washington and the country that he's not as predictable as everyone thought. That would, at this point, trump everything else and establish a principle of its own that might pay dividends in other realms down the road.
