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In the wake of the General McChrystal firing because of the article titled: Runaway General, Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings is being berated for the fact that he was "hanging around" the general and his staff and therefore somehow must have hypnotized his crew into expressing thoughts and feelings that were classified. (Kind of like the Svengali-like powers only Russian spies in espionage novels by Robert Ludlum could possess.)

And after they were duped by his super powers of persuasion by the great 'hang out,' he was somehow able to put together the type of long form journalism that has been sorely lacking in the traditional media of today. You would think he would be celebrated by the mainstream press for getting a tremendous scoop by doing real investigative journalism, but instead he's being vilified. Are they just jealous, or do they feel their access is now threatened too? The type of access that allows them to print almost propaganda type press released, but gets them invited to cocktail parties.

I didn't realize Michael Hastings 'hang out' interview technique was so easy to do. Find a destination that is remote enough because let's face it, McChrystal was the general in charge of the entire Afghanistan war. It's not like he's hanging around a Jack In The Box, sucking down a a few tacos. Buy a couple of guys a drink at an Irish pub in France and suddenly they open up and tell what they think of Vice President Biden. That was very slimy of Michael Hastings, we now learn.

Here's Howard Kurtz:

KURTZ: And he got fired rather quickly by President Obama. Do you think that McChrystal and his top aides got so used to your hanging around that they let their guard down?

Yeah, the elite team that McChrystal assembled was easily distracted by the constant appearance of Hastings, so they let their guard down. And these are the men running a war. Don't you feel confident now that it will end soon?

Hastings' response:

HASTINGS: No. I don't think that was the case, because some of the most talked-about parts of the piece happened within the first 24 hours that I was with his team.

One of the most -- I guess people have called it inflammatory passages is when I quote a top adviser saying, "Biden -- did you say 'bite me'?" That was the second morning I was with them in Paris covering an on-the-record meeting that they were having to prepare for a speech later on.

I mean, in fly-on-the-wall journalism, you're there to capture exactly those kinds of moments.

But you were hanging around, Michael. Dammit, you unprofessional hack.

KURTZ: But when you are there --

HASTINGS: That what makes fly-on-the-wall journalism so wonderful to read.

KURTZ: When you are there that much, you don't think it's likely that McChrystal and his team assume that some of their joking, that some of their banter would be treated by you as off the record?

... You got some criticism for quoting one comment by one aide while he was getting drunk, or "hammered" is the way you put it. Any second thoughts about that?

HASTINGS: Which quote are you referring to?

KURTZ: I don't have the piece in front of me, but certainly it's been widely commented upon that there was some drinking going on.

Michael, I have a big show on CNN and I ask the questions because I'm the media critic even if I don't know what I'm asking about, OK? You fill in the blanks. And really, these people were getting shitfaced. Isn't that a bad time to ask them questions?

HASTINGS: Yes. There was drinking going on.

But the only quote from that scene, if I remember, were two of the top senior military officials singing a song that they called "The Afghanistan Song." So I quoted the refrain which was, "Afghanistan!" "Afghanistan!"

And then I quoted General McChrystal observing his men, and saying, "I'd die for these men, and they'd die for me." I don't see what's so controversial about those quotes.

Bam. Take that beeatch!

KURTZ: You certainly did illuminate the human side of war. Michael Hastings, thank you very much for joining us from Afghanistan.

Now let's hear from fellow Beltway Villager CBS Lara Logan who has been pretty damn good covering Iraq.

LOGAN: Well, it really depends on the circumstances. It's hard to know -- Michael Hastings, if you believe him, says that there were no ground rules laid out. And, I mean, that just doesn't really make a lot of sense to me, because if you look at the people around General McChrystal, if you look at his history, he was the Joint Special Operations commander. He has a history of not interacting with the media at all.

And his chief of intelligence, Mike Flynn, is the same. I mean, I know these people. They never let their guard down like that.

To me, something doesn't add up here. I just -- I don't believe it.

Interpretation: "F--k him, Howard, he beat me to the scoop so he must be full of shit."

Or maybe it was because he took the time out after meeting the general earlier and went by himself to seek out General McChrystal and his staff and ask to do a real article instead of using the all powerful EMAIL. Why travel to a hell hole like Kabul when you can email the general a few basic questions and wait for his reply in the comfort of your own home or office in D.C. or New York?

And then these people wonder why the public has such a dim view of their credibility.

CNN is reporting that General McChrystal has submitted his resignation. The President wants to meet with him before deciding to accept it.

Yes, General McChrystal snarked and growled in front of a Rolling Stone reporter about foreign officials, the Obama administration, President Obama and Vice President Biden. About the only official to get a pass from McChrystal was Hillary Clinton, largely because she supports whatever the military wants in Afghanistan. And as Jason argues, all of this is a reason for the President to accept his resignation.

I've watched this story unfold all day, and while I believe the remarks McChrystal made about the administration and the President reflect poorly on him and are insubordinate, I'm surprised that the focus has been so sharply laid upon that angle. No matter what the good general has to say about his conduct in an apologetic tone, he knew exactly what he said and who he said it to. He also received the article in advance.

Robert Gibbs laid out the real reason for why the President should accept McChrystal's resignation in his daily briefing.

MR. GIBBS: Well, let me say, first and foremost, there are more than 90,000 of our bravest men and women in Afghanistan, and what we owe them is nothing short of our full support and our best efforts to get a new strategy in that country right. That’s the president’s focus. That should be everybody’s focus.

It was a strategy, as you all know, that was worked out in long consultation last fall and last winter. And the president went around to many of the people that will be in the Situation Room tomorrow, asking them if they agreed with this new strategy and asked for their commitment to implement it. That’s — again, that’s what we owe the men and women that are — that are fighting each and every day over there.

According to the Rolling Stone article, the rank and file has lost faith in McChrystal's strategy and believe it places them at a greater risk of injury and death.

But however strategic they may be, McChrystal’s new marching orders have caused an intense backlash among his own troops. Being told to hold their fire, soldiers complain, puts them in greater danger. “Bottom line?” says a former Special Forces operator who has spent years in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I would love to kick McChrystal in the nuts. His rules of engagement put soldiers’ lives in even greater danger. Every real soldier will tell you the same thing.”

This is why McChrystal must resign. The President will survive petty snark about whether he was sufficiently deferential to the general at their first meeting. He will survive the hysterical flappings of the right about how he's unqualified to lead, and how the military doesn't respect him. This is not about President Obama. It's about the troops who are putting their lives on the line every single day in Afghanistan.

Everyone who has a clue about leadership understands what happens when the rank and file loses faith. There can be no question that the troops in Afghanistan do not believe in their ability to successfully carry out the mission McChrystal has defined, nor do they believe in the mission itself. That is a very large red flag that must not be ignored.

Just as McChrystal has expressed his lack of faith and trust in the President, so too have the troops expressed similar sentiments toward him. For that reason, it is time for General McChrystal to hand his letter of resignation to the President when he reports tomorrow. He should then apologize not to the President, but to the troops under his command whose concerns he so cavalierly dismissed.

So forgive me if I don't buy the "I'm so sorry, I used poor judgment" apology. I don't. He knew what he said and why he said it.

What Gibbs said is far more important. This is about those 90,000 men and women over there. And what that article said is far more important. Those 90,000 men and women doubt this general's strategy and believe they are being put in more danger than necessary. When the President accepts McChrystal's resignation, effective immediately, he should make this clear to the country.

It really isn't about the President. Or even about tension between civilian/military leadership. It is about McChrystal's failure to lead those troops in that region with full conviction and belief in their success. Don't be fooled by all the right wing spew about to gush forth. For this administration, the troops are what matter, not a general's petulance about not being properly admired by a sitting President.

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On This Week with Jake Tapper, Rahm Emanuel says that the Afghanistan withdrawal deadline is really more of a guideline:

TAPPER: Your portfolio is a lot larger than just energy and the oil spill. I want to move on the Afghanistan. We recently have two grim milestones in Afghanistan. More than 1,000 U.S. service personnel have died in there in service to their country. And this war became the longest in our nation's history.

EMANUEL: Yes.

TAPPER: The president set a July 2011 deadline for the beginning of troop withdrawal. But there is some confusion as to what it means, exactly. In Jon Alter's new book, here's Vice President Biden, he says, quote: "At the conclusion of an interview in his West Wing office, Biden was adamant. 'In July of 2011 you're going to see a whole lot of people moving out, be on it,' Biden said as he wheeled to leave the room, late for lunch with the president. He turned at the door and said once more, 'Bet on it.'"

But here is General Petraeus testifying before Congress this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, COMMANDER, CENTCOM: ... said that it was very important that it not imply a race for the exits, a search for the light to turn off or anything like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So what exactly does the July 2011 deadline mean? Is it going to be a whole lot of people moving out, definitely, as Vice President Biden says? Or could it be more nuanced, as General Petraeus says, maybe just a couple of people leaving one province?

EMANUEL: Well, no, everybody knows there's a firm date. And that firm date is a date -- deals with the troops that are part of the surge, the additional 30,000. What will be determined at that date or going into that date will be the scale and scope of that reduction.

But there will be no doubt that that's going to happen. And I know actually -- I look at both of those, and they're not inconsistent. But remember where we were on Afghanistan policy, that war had waxed and waned. And there really hadn't been a focus on how to bring that war to -- and the effort (INAUDIBLE), even with al Qaeda and Taliban, to a point given what was going on in Iraq.

The president raised the troop level and civilian participation to 30,000. This was creating a window of opportunity for Afghanistan. We are now at that point in Afghanistan, and in fact for the first time in eight years, nine years, they're actually meeting their police recruitment requirements as well as their army recruitment requirements. So they themselves can take more and more responsibility for the security of that country.

Second is we're also -- about a half of al Qaeda has been eliminated in this last 18 months. So we're taking the pressure to al Qaeda, taking the pressure to the Taliban. And we're making progress as it relates to, as you know, after the president's meeting with President Karzai, went back to Afghanistan, held a peace jurga.

There is also progress being made on that side. All of this has been predictable in the sense that we knew once we created this window of opportunity, we were going to focus on what are the resources that are necessary, where are we going to be making progress. But the July '11 date, as stated by the president, that's not moving. That's not changing. Everybody agreed on that date. General Petraeus did. Secretary Gates did. As also Admiral Mullen agreed.

And the goal is to take this opportunity, focus on what needs to get done, and then on July 2011, is to begin the reduction of...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: But it could be any...

EMANUEL: ... troops.

TAPPER: But it could be any number of people.
EMANUEL: That's what you'll evaluate based on the conditions on the ground. That is -- but what had to happen prior to that was having a date that gave everybody, the NATO, international forces, as well as Afghanistan, that sense of urgency to move.

As hate radio, corporate right wing media and GOP politicians ramp up the violent rhetoric against Democrats, the nutjobs who follow them like zombies are becoming more and more unhinged and posing a threat to society. Case in point - a man so enraged by seeing an Obama/Biden bumper sticker on a car that he repeatedly rammed his SUV into it, while a 10 year old girl was inside:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A Nashville man says he and his 10-year-old daughter were victims of road rage Thursday afternoon, all because of a political bumper sticker on his car.

He said Harry Weisiger gave him the bird and rammed into his vehicle, after noticing an Obama-Biden sticker on his car bumper.

Duren had just picked up his 10-year-old daughter from school and had her in the car with him.

"He pointed at the back of my car," Duren said, "the bumper, flipped me off, one finger salute."

Once he started driving again, down Blair Boulevard, towards his home, he said, "I looked in the rear view mirror again, and this same SUV was speeding, flying up behind me, bumped me."

Duren said he applied his brake and the SUV smashed into the back of his car.

He then put his car in park to take care of the accident, but Weisiger started pushing the car using his SUV.

Duren said, "He pushed my car up towards the sidewalk, almost onto the sidewalk." Read on...

I don't think it's a matter of if, but when, one of these nutjobs are going to seriously injure or kill a Democratic politician or citizen. Apparently, that's what it will take before we see some form of crackdown on the violent propaganda being thrown around by Republican politicians and their media outlets.

Remember what happened to the last American who was labeled a "baby killer" by the right? Yeah, he's dead...

Michael Moore's doing a media blitz to mark the DVD release of "Capitalism: A Love Story" and after a couple of delays, I finally get to talk briefly to him Tuesday afternoon.

I first note he's a Crooks and Liars fan. "Oh yeah, it's great. I try to post whatever I can to lead to your site. It's bold and brave," he says. ("Bold and brave." I like it. Sounds like a movie review, right?)

"When you first started making movies, people were saying, 'Oh, that far-left Michael Moore'," I say. "It seems to me that with each movie, you were a little bit ahead of the curve and then people catch up with you. Has that been your experience?"

"That's exactly what happened," he says. "I haven't changed but the country has changed. People are not only catching onto the lies they've been told, they've become more progressive themselves. Now I'm not just that guy in the baseball cap."

When he first started appearing on television, that class bias in the media worked against him. "It was almost like, okay, we had this blue-collar working class guy on, and now we don't have to have another one for a year," I say.

"Oh yeah, absolutely. Let me give you an example of class bias in the media. Yesterday there were all these really serious things going on: the banking regulation proposal, what happened with Biden in Israel. And the story on NBC evening news and CBS news was ... the runaway Prius! That, and the rainstorm in New York. The announcer says, 'Let's go to the hardest hit city,' and it's Greenwich, Connecticut! Oh, the humanity!" he says, letting loose his trademark belly laugh.

Then he's serious again.

"The mainstream media is a huge distraction, and I have no doubt this is purposely done," he says. "It's a system of enforced ignorance to keep people dumb."

If liberal bloggers worked 24/7, 365 days a year, they couldn't begin to catch all the media distortions, I say - and people probably wouldn't want to hear it. Maybe our efforts would be better spent telling people not to watch television.

"If you're talking about a 50-year-old white guy, yeah," he agrees.

"Young people don't even watch the news anymore. They watch Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart," I say.

"But young people, by watching less news, are becoming more informed. Something new and good will come out of that. It was young people who put the first African-American president in the White House," he says.

I mention my pet peeve: the right-wing viral emails that go unanswered, pushing erroneous info into the less-informed voting public. "I try to talk to other liberals about it, and their attitude is, well, 'here's a white paper, these are the facts, now they'll agree with us'. Too much emphasis on the facts, not enough on the emotions."

"That was one of the criticisms people made about me from the beginning," he says. "But I'm only honoring what any good storyteller tries to do: convey the truth through emotion."

I end by asking him what's next. "Your movie kind of ended on a down note..."

"Not for me!" he interrupts, chortling. (At the end of "Capitalism" he says that if people don't take action, he won't be making another film.)

Then he becomes serious. "I want to see if people see the movie and say, 'What are we gonna do tomorrow?' You can't go home and say 'yay Mike, great film' You have to do something.

"I'm waiting to see if people will rise up, and if so, I'll rise with them."

It's a disquieting thing, when one sees four-star general officers thinking that they need to be more proactive and outgoing about their advice on foreign policy and national security issues. It's not that they aren't smart people and don't have good ideas - far from it. They can be very clear thinkers, if not a little impatient with the pace of Beltway politics. For instance, we discover that General David Petraeus is suggesting to the White House that Israel's politics are endangering US military personnel and the chances of their success in stabilizing the region.

On Jan. 16, two days after a killer earthquake hit Haiti, a team of senior military officers from the U.S. Central Command (responsible for overseeing American security interests in the Middle East), arrived at the Pentagon to brief Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The team had been dispatched by CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus to underline his growing worries at the lack of progress in resolving the issue. The 33-slide, 45-minute PowerPoint briefing stunned Mullen. The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM's mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that Mitchell himself was (as a senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) "too old, too slow ... and too late."

Without getting into a heated political discussion about Israel's aggressive and untempered national security policies, I'll just note two things. First, for someone to notice that Israel's behavior over the last decade has been unhelpful is not exactly a relevation. It's something that I noted in 2005, and as a commenter notes, retired General Zinni also noted. The road to stabilize Iraq and the Middle East region in general runs through Jerusalem, and until Congress stops letting AIPAC write US foreign policy, it's not going to get fixed.

Second, there was Petraeus's suggestion that Israel be placed within US Central Command's area of responsibility instead of within US European Command, as it has been for decades. He feels, as do others, that this is the logical thing to do, so one can tackle the larger thorny issue of Israeli-Arab relations instead of just managing military issues within the Arab/Persian countries. He's absolutely wrong, if only because the Israeli-Arab issue is intensely political and not (currently) a military issue. Life and death are seldom logical, even as one requires logic to attain a desired goal. It's certainly not an issue that a military officer, even a four-star, can attempt to solve within the three-to-four year term that one has as a combatant commander. Military affairs are subordinate to political strategy, and Petraeus oversteps his authority by suggesting this approach.

And while we're on the subject, other general officers who feel that the US government ought to keep combat troops in Iraq past August for the sake of stability operations ought to be more cognizant of the political overtones of that suggestion. For a culture who worships Clausewitz, it's as if they don't quite get the concept of military operations being an extension of politics. Sometimes it appears that our military leaders' grasp of national strategy is lacking. But then again, I suppose one could say that about political leaders, also.

Flipping around to CNN, Wolf's The Situation Room goes gaga over the Scott Brown swearing-in. They are in a frenzy. The devoted almost the entire first hour of TSR to him. Tongues are hanging out, heavy breathing follows as the cameras check him out to the chamber where Joe Biden does the honors.

Fox News stocks talker Ben Stein (fired for ethics violations at the NY Times) opines that he's just the type of guy you want to have a beer with and he's so much better looking than the schoolmarmy-looking Martha Coakley.

Then they picked up his presser. It's all about cutting those damn taxes...

He ducks the DADT question by saying he'll just ask the generals how they feel. That's real leadership. He said the stimulus didn't create one new job...

And Brown said that not only do we have to worry about terrorists attacking our airports, but they are also coming for our shopping malls.

Q: Do you mind being one or two republicans as long as you like the bill.

Brown:...We have terrorists trying to kill not only in our airports, but in our shopping malls.

I hadn't heard of that one. There was the Derrick Sharif case in 2007, but that involved no terrorist organizations and was a conspiracy of one. There have been some right-wing sites that were saying a mall would make a nice, juicy target.

Wonder if that's where Brown was getting his information.

Let's Try Democracy: Most outrageous statement ever by a US Department of Justice

Calitics: WTF! Jerry Brown attends fundraiser for, and endorses, a Republican D.A. in San Bernardino

Mock, Paper, Scissors: Tengrain Presents..."The Memory Hole" starring Chimpy McStagger

The Baseline Scenario: A short question for Senior officials of the New York Fed

Words of Power: Why has the Obama/Biden administration put Pollyana in charge of US policy on Darfur?

HOLY CRAP: American Jihad...Cosmos Remixed...The Empire Strikes Back...Richard Dawkins & Bill Maher...Racist Roots...Hey, we’re not Roman Polanski, OK?...Israeli Taliban...War Whore and Moonie...More Rev. Moon fans...They turned me Muslim...Jesus died for your donuts...Compassion muscle...The War on Language...Catholic movie review...Cheerleader Preaching...God and Wal-Mart...Jesus wants you to laugh!

This is pretty big news. The big progressive groups hadn't yet spoken on the question of escalation in Afghanistan - their silence was pronounced. MoveOn finally broke that silence today, appealing to the President to commit to a clear exit strategy. It's a pretty big step.

U.S. policy in Afghanistan has reached a pivotal moment. President Obama is poised to make a critical decision about the Afghanistan war in the next few weeks. And there’s a big debate happening right now about what to do.

Pro-war advocates both inside and outside the administration—including John McCain and Joe Lieberman—are calling for a big escalation. The general in charge of Afghanistan is expected to request tens of thousands more troops, and that may just be the beginning. They’re cranking up the pressure for an immediate surge.

But other powerful voices are urging caution: Vice President Biden and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel have raised real concerns about the idea of sending more troops to Afghanistan without a clear strategy, as have Democrats in Congress. And a majority of Americans oppose increasing troop levels.

Can you write to the White House and tell them we need a clear exit strategy—not tens of thousands more US troops stuck in a quagmire? You can send the President a message by clicking below:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51843&id=&t=1

Some administration officials are arguing for a smaller, nimbler approach with a narrow focus on the threat from al-Qaeda. But cheerleaders for the war refuse to acknowledge that there could be any viable strategy other than more and more troops. So they’re trotting out the same tired old lines and questioning the motives of those who disagree with them.

They figure they can cut off any debate about our ultimate goals in Afghanistan and the region. But President Obama has consistently shown a willingness to stand up for his more thoughtful approach to foreign policy, and that’s what he needs to do here, too.

The hawks are making their position heard. Now, the majority of Americans—those of us who are for as quick and as responsible an end to the war as possible—need to make our voices heard, too.

With Democrats opposing escalation by more than two to one, MoveOn is just reflecting the opinions of their membership. They're a bit late to the debate, but better than ducking it entirely.

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Michael Ozanian, a Forbes national editor who I've posted about before. (FOX's Ozanian compares Hillary to Goebbels ) has a ludicrous view of what the middle class is in America, but why wouldn't he---he's a Saturday FOX Stock regular on Forbes on FOX and they never can tell the truth. The segment was from a couple of weeks ago that focused on VP Biden saying that Unions help the middle class and I just had to get this up. These rich Wall Streeters hate unions so they come up with bogus info to lie through the show. One idiot on the panel says benefits are robust in the private sector. Another says union member shouldn't be so antagonistic to their employers. For who? But Ozanian is the worst of the bunch and he gets rewarded with another show. Right Wingers take care of each other.

Ozanian: In general Unions have never worked. They have been detriment to the economy as Jack pointed out.

Asman: What about a hundred years ago, they weren't a detriment to the economy a hundred years ago.

Ozanian: You wanna go back to the way we were a hundred years ago?

There was a time when Unions did some good.

Ozanian: If you're in the middle class int this country, you have two cars, you have a house, you have some investment portfolio, you have very high standards for your food that you eat. That, you don't get in any to the other countries with high unions so you can take your safety net and stick it.

Asman: Give Neil a chance.

Neil Weinberg: As a Forbes editor you can say that that is average, two cars and a big house. 50,000 a year. I'm sorry, the average American worker does not feel wealthy, does not feel comfortable

Asman: It's still better than China where middle class income is at 3000dollars a year.

So now the standard we have to judge ourselves, the richest country in the world is China, who have no human rights? We're lucky we don't make 3K a year. OMG. David Asman sure makes an ass out of himself. I'm so glad we all eat like pigs and don't need any security to fall back on. I think all these Stock show pricks should have their salaries posted directly under their names whenever they go on these shows if they are going to lie with abandon like this.

Ozanian also is part of a new show called "Sports Money." Please leave him some comments.

By the way, Quentin Hardy is quite good on these telecasts even though I cut him out of this one. Here's his Facebook if you want to leave him a nice message.