Can General McCrystal’s Firing be a Teachable Moment? [Reader Post]

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I know that this is somewhat old news by now. I meant to get this post up last week, but a few personal items kept me from finishing writing until now…

Like many others, I’m not too happy about how things went down with General McCrystal. While I don’t like the actions of the General or the President, I can understand why both sides did what they did. This post isn’t to debate what both sides did or why they did it, but to look at an important lesson that we can take from it.

After the story broke, Obama was left with almost no viable alternatives other than to fire McCrystal. Anyone who has led an organization or even a small group knows that you can not have a key team member question your leadership publicly. Your authority is questioned and ability to lead effectively is cut out unless immediate and severe action is taken on your part. That was the position Obama was placed in, but look at this from another angle. McCrystal had accountability to Obama, but to whom does Obama have accountability?

From a philosophical standpoint, just as the CEO of a company answers to all of the shareholders, to some degree the president ultimately answers to his biggest stakeholder, the United States of America. And on this note, does it not hurt the country when the president publicly criticizes the US? Although I wasn’t fond of Obama’s initial World Apolgy Tour and did not think it would achieve anything, I will admit that I held out a faint, if somewhat naive, hope that while it would not turn the world into a perfect place it might help improve relations with some of the less beligerent nations, and no I’m not including Iran, North Korea, etc. in this bunch. Looking back in hindsight we know now that this did not happen, but I’m actually not beating up the president too much over this one.

What I do have more issue with are times when other countries criticize the US in front of Obama and he does nothing to stick up for his country. Just sitting by as Daniel Ortega spent an hour ripping into the United States does not warrant a response of “He’s entitled to his opinion”. And even more disturbing was our president and members of his party standing up and applauding a foreign head of state visiting the U.S. criticizing one of our states. A proper response would have been to tell Calderon to pound sand, or even better, ask him why he is so inept at governing that the citizens of his country are trying to flee in droves and he is encouraging them.

To step back a bit to my original point on accountability, no I am not suggesting that our president should be removed from office over his remarks. But there’s nothing wrong with being a proud American, especially when you happen to be its leader. You are the President and CEO of this organization, responsible for promoting it and its vision. To give an illustration, imagine two press conferences being held at Microsoft’s annual meeting. There are two Bill Gates ready to speak – one is our Bill Gates, while the second is the evil Bill Gates from a parallel universe, recognizable by his goatee (Or would the one from the parallel universe be the good one like Cartman was in that episode of South Park? Sorry, I digress). The “good” Bill Gates talks about WIndows 7, about Office 2010, their new features and the plans that Microsoft has for bringing better software at lower costs that will bring greater computing power to more people than ever before. Meanwhile, “evil” Gates is apologizing for the cluster foxtrot that was Vista, for the bugs in software releases, for his arrogance in IE dominating the web browser market and destroying Netscape. When asked if he still believes that Microsoft is an exceptional company Evil Gates goes on to state that he feels that Microsoft is exceptional, just like Steve Jobs believes that Apple is exceptional… you get the idea. Which company do you want to purchase from, work for, invest in – which leader do you want to follow? The same general principal holds true for any leader, no matter how great or small. Showing as weak and humble isn’t working as hoped, and the rest of the world is figuring it out (H/T Steynonline).

Like I said, this can be a teachable moment. While his past actions don’t leave me optimistic, I hope that our president can learn from it

Crossposted from Brothers Bob Blog

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Let’s suppose he can learn from this.
Do you suppose he wants to?
Do you, in fact, suppose he doesn’t already know what’s happening and is doing it purposefully?

There are now numerous press reports which state that most of the things said, were OFF THE RECORD. That the uniformed military confidence was betrayed by a reporter with an agenda, who has a RECORD of dishonorable behaviour.

These fine men… who have now been crucified by the Press, did not say anything worse than I did… but I am no longer in uniform…. and actualy said nothing worse than the Jokes I made about Carter… or Clinton… or even the things I said aobut Regean when he abandoned Beruit (I was part of MARG 2-83… and felt betrayed… nuff said).

To expect an American, raised on the idea of Freedom of Speech and opinion, to NEVER say anything derogatory about the CINC… is unrealistic… HOWEVER… they do try to do it “off the record”… but the reporter betrayed that trust.

Thus… sadly… lesson to be learned? NEVER trust a Reporter.

It is all intentential. He has carefully planned every step of the way. He is a marxist if not a communist. He is intent on bringing down this country in any way he can. His whole family and most of his friends are communists. His mother, his father, his grandparents, his childhood mentor were all communists. They hated this country and taught him to to do so too. This is a damaged person. All through his life he has been looking for a father figure and the people he has chosen for this role are based on his real father, an avowed communist. He has committed all the crimes for which he can be impeached: treason, bribes, high crimes and misdemeanors. He has committed them all sever times over but this congress willnever impeach him. They are in the tank for him and are communists too.

Obama is accountable only to his Russian and or muslim handlers. He didn’t spend two years of his life in the Soviet Union during the early nineties for nothing. The man was never vetted. Why? The question now is when and how to get rid of him and his minions.

McCrystal wasn’t fired, he did what he had to to tell obama to shove his foney policies where the Sun don’t shine. obama is the most corrupt incompetent President and adminstration to be in the Whitehouse. I can see Nov from my house and the politically geister kickin obama and his corrupt obama crat get are something they have had coming for 30 years. In my opinon the obama crat party will probably never recover from the inompetent and corrupt actions of obama, schumer, murray, dodd, frank, pelosi, reid, range, holder, sallyczar, the ice cream lady and the rest of the thugs.l

@Jake

McCrystal wasn’t fired? lol…yeah and I suppose General MacArthur choose to take early retirement. I’m sure Petraeus is a smarter choice than McCrystal who won’t shoot his mouth off to the media to same extent – no matter how justified his irritations may be.

“There are all kinds of low class slime who are trying and will continue to try to wreck this country from the inside. Most of them don’t know it but they are actually working for the Russians. Some of them do know it, though. It doesn’t matter whether they call themselves communists, socialists or just plain liberals. Thats is what they are doing.” Gen George S. Patton Still holds true today.

The Oval office isn’t the place for such a basic lesson of leadership to be learned.
The American people were supposed to elect someone who already had a history of successful performance. Instead they chose a dreamer who offered them “Hope and Change” and ignored his track record.
You’re absolutely right, we need to hope that The President of the United States learns the same basic leadership skills exhibited by members of the military, CEOS, middle managers, small business owners…….

Crusoe: hi, YES, VOTE a former MILITARY, FOR PRESIDENT is a must for a SUPERPOWER which is AMERICA, WHICH has been THREATEN in theses times from outside and inside, and is still is;
THE top job is so important to keep AMERICA safe from thoses
who want to use it for their GLOBAL WORLD POWER, which the people dont want, and CONTROL from wihin which the people refused, and to obey the laws in the CONSTITUTION which has been transgress: A person who has previous been in the front line and which has made the OATH before to protect THIS COUNTRY from threath within will be more able to make hard decisions that will be needed in the next PRESIDENCY: AMERICANS had now all the experience of having leaders who dont dare stand up and who dont want to stand up, from attacks to his laws of the LANDS, because they follow a diffrent agenda, dangerous for the well being of the CITIZENS
bye 🙄

Gaffa,

You mean his choice of President Bush’s General is smarter than his original choice of General McCrystal?

Yeah, your right, Mr. Obama did act stupidly with his first choice. He thought he had picked a yes man and that didn’t turn out so well. He actually spoke his mind. Therefore, is it a teachable moment, it tells us even more about Mr. Obama.

Next time, in between golf and plugging that damn hole, maybe he will spend more time making sure he has a another lemming on his staff.

Oh, and also in between his tireless quest to put people back to work…let’s not forget that. He is a real worker, that Barry, a real worker.

Brother Bob An extremely well written and thought provoking post.
BarbaraS and Minuteman26 “communist”,”Russian and or Muslim handlers”.You’re nuts.

GENERAL McCRYSTAL resigned ,HE was not fired.

LOOKING at the conservatives adds on the banner right: I would say, TO WARREN BUFFET and to BILL GATES, please dont you forget the conservatives from now to NOVEMBER and futther times. 🙄 best to you both.

Although I wasn’t fond of Obama’s initial World Apolgy Tour and did not think it would achieve anything, I will admit that I held out a faint, if somewhat naive, hope that while it would not turn the world into a perfect place it might help improve relations with some of the less beligerent nations, and no I’m not including Iran, North Korea, etc. in this bunch. Looking back in hindsight we know now that this did not happen, but I’m actually not beating up the president too much over this one.

Sorry, but I am.

Obama thinks he can overcome anyone with the power of his ego.

Better men than Obama coming from all perspectives have been unsuccessful with those quislings but no one until Obama was going to demean and beat up his own country in the process.

So screw Obama.

First off, thanks as always to Curt for allowing me to post.

@ ilovebeeswarzone & GaffaUK: McCrystal’s resignation looks more like the only alternative to being fired – I’m thinking along the lines of “suicide by cop”

@ DrJohn: My hope was given how well he charmed the US out of its senses I was hoping he could translate some of that shallow charm into results abroad. I have no problem admitting I was wrong- I just wish he would!

@Tom in CA

Yes – Bush picking Petraeus for the surge in Iraq was the right choice…after many years of bad decisions and inertia. I suggest reading Bob Woodward’s ‘The War Within’ which really illuminated what a mess the White House was in – in regards to Iraq in the years 2006-2008.

I think there must be a reasonable middle ground in the army between discipline/following out orders and being able to speak your mind. Doing a piece in the The Rolling Stone magazine where you openly criticise the direction of the war and the C-in-C during a war is just plain stupid and irresponsible. If McCrystal or Petraeus had done the same under Bush – I’m sure he would have fired them too.

@Ilovebees
Oh please don’t be so naive – he was forced out. He had no alternative but to resign.

BROTHER BOB: thank you for an excellent POST; I said he resign because I heard it and I know he would prefer the people to remember this action, not give the president the benefit to let history know other wise, for his family name and respect of his carrer. as we learn that he was led into applying that ROE and the president being the commander in chief has to take the responsibility of thoses actions too. bye 🙄

The future of the military under Obama:

http://www.qando.net/?p=8975

GAFFA UK: yes but he did resign, and if you where him, you would prefer to keep that truth
for the sake of thoses you love, please read my other comment on top. bye 🙄

suek thank’s for this very telling link, it tells a lot of his real agenda, we heard it before right here but never realy beleive it could get real, well no more doubt to have now, they are moving discretly enouph, but quite fast,step by step, we’ll have to follow on to this intent. 🙄

Teachable moment, eh?

For who? Definitely NOT for Obama since its obvious he’s learned nothing in the year and half of his floundering around foolishly while defiling the Oval Office…

Let’s face facts, we have a commie committing identity theft (claiming to be both a college graduate and a constitutional lawyer but has nothing to credible to back it up) running wild with our collective charge card

World Mourns As Communist Darkness Falls Upon America

juandos: hi, you have a good way with words; I am a bit jealous.