America's Top Commander Exposes Obama Administration Incompetence; Walks It Back

[KukriKhan]

This would not have been a problem if the war was stopped already. General said something stupid about his bosses, he got fired. Oh lord, who saw that coming? The war will be ending anyway, it is foolish to talk about how his being fired hurts the cause when the cause was dead 8 years into the campaign when the president who presided over the war's beginning left office with thousands of dead Americans, tens of thousands of dead Afghans and Iraqis, a regrown insurgency and no Osama bin Laden. Now it's nine years and we still have people clamoring that if do it right this time by not firing the best suited general, we can win this. It's over, and if the general wants to lose his job with his idiotic words, let him.

... and thus, 3-4 years down the road, NOT be the guy who lost the war; I think you may be on to something there.

-edit-
Apparently, after 3 years of "General Betray-us" frivolity, Moveon.org has suddenly (as in, yesterday) scrubbed that bit of their website. People noticed: http://weaselzippers.us/2010/06/23/m...-from-website/

[Pannonian]

Suddenly, my lack of judgement and big mouthed-ness makes me all the more paranoid about posting my "journal." Now you all know why my only post to date went in the backroom. If only they gave warning points like the .org.......

*Imagines General McChrystal posting in the Entrance Hall.*

[Strike For The South]

It is interesting that the discussion seems to be focused on whether the general should have made the comments and not on what he said, which seems to be of greater importance. The top commander in Afghanistan sees the president as unprepared and his top men in country as a bunch of stooges. Such a situation does not seem conducive to a successful conclusion.

Agreed..its ok though I hear mcclellan is running against Lincoln in 64

[Devastatin Dave]

I was shocked that Obama did the right thing and fired this man. When you're in the Armed Services, you can about the leadership, but you better do it privately and not in front of your troops. The general and his staff had to be the biggest pack of Apocolypse Now wannabe idiots to have ever put on a uniform to say the dumb-**** stuff they said in front of a.... Rolling Stone reporter? I mean come on, maybe they should have started beeding with the locals and putting chopped off heads on stakes around thier post. I'm glad McChrystal's gone, he voted for Obama for God's sake so he definitely didn't have very good judgement to begin with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx7XNb3Q9Ek

[Beskar]

Rolling Stone is a magazine about music, and they got a scoop like this?

[Devastatin Dave]

Rolling Stone is a magazine about music, and they got a scoop like this?

The General and the reporter were stuck (can't remember where) during the whole Iceland Valcano thing. the General asked the guy to come to Afganastan with him. I alomost feel the General did all this on purpose to eaither a) let the cat out of the bag that the war was being f'd by this administration, or b) he just wanted to feel like a rock star and let his narcisism take over.
Rolling Stone is hardly a music rag. Its always been pretty political. Its been orally pleasuring Obama for a few years now...

[Subotan]

There has been a militarisation of American politics that's unsettling. It is creating all sorts of policy problems: no politician can afford to be seen as 'soft' (so policy options are limited to 'send in the troops' and 'send in more troops', the war on terror has installed the doctrine of permanent state of war, the military (sometimes openly) disdains the politicians (the representatives of the people, although there is a scary amount of Americans who feel the military is the true representative of the people)

That's Military Keynesianism for you.

Interesting though experiment: If we imagine that American foreign policy in, say, 6 years, had been widely successful, with the Taliban crushed, Iraq at peace, a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine, North Korea in the process of being absorbed by the South, Iran under the control of the Green Movement, China making tentative steps towards democratisation etc., would a Presidential Candidate (From either party, although most likely Dems) be able to get elected on a promise to dramatically scale back the military, in terms of personell, equipment, healthcare provisions, overseas bases, nukes etc. on the basis that it was no longer necessary to spend as much money as America does on Defense?

I don't know enough about the American military, American society's attitude to the military, or the American political consensus on the military to answer that adequately. But I'm guessing that it would be unsettlingly difficult.

[PanzerJaeger]

Interesting bookend to this whole debacle by the Telegraph.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Barack Obama's firing of Stanley McChrystal showed weakness and will backfire
He may have been hailed for his decisiveness, but Barack Obama sacked the wrong man and has yet to sort out his Afghanistan policy, writes Toby Harnden in Washington

For the Washington cognoscenti, the appointment of General David Petraeus marked the crescendo of President Barack Obama's Wonderful Week. In firing General Stanley McChrystal, Mr Obama, the ultimate cool cat, was transformed into Mr Angry. The law professor finally became commander-in-chief.

Obama, so the Beltway groupthink goes, turned a lose-lose situation into a political victory by asserting his authority over an insubordinate steely-eyed killer and replacing him with the ultimate warrior-scholar. He showed the doubters he was tough, and he traded up.


How wrong the conventional wisdom can be. Obama's actions in dragging McChrystal back to Washington and personally sacking him in as dramatic a fashion as possible in fact displayed weakness. They also avoided the real problem - his confused Afghanistan policy and dysfunctional civilian team.

No one would pretend that the profane, juvenile banter of McChrystal and his aides was clever or appropriate, never mind in the presence of an iconoclastic Rolling Stone reporter. The general, a legendary combat leader who engaged in fire fights in Iraq alongside SAS troopers while in his 50s, deserved to be reprimanded.

Inartful and ill-advised as the words were, however, they also spoke to a justifiable deep frustration within the US military in Afghanistan and contained a degree of truth about Obama's civilian officials that made the famously thin-skinned President decidedly uncomfortable.

McChrystal and his "Team America" vented about Ambassador Karl Eikenberry betraying them with a leak; portrayed special envoy Richard Holbrooke as an egotist in fear of losing his job; joked about Vice President Joe Biden being a bit of a blowhard; and suggested James Jones, National Security Adviser, was an ineffectual relic of the Cold War.

These are hardly controversial opinions - even within the White House. Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff and a man whose salty language would make a sailor blush, probably says worse things about his colleagues to a reporter before breakfast on most days of the week.

Team America, of course, was a bit dismissive of Obama himself and that cannot have gone down well with the self-regarding occupant of the Oval Office. Even more difficult to take must have been the warm words they had for Hillary Clinton, his Secretary of State, who large numbers of Democrats and even many Republicans now wish had prevailed in 2008.

If Obama wants to succeed in Afghanistan, he probably needs to fire Holbrooke and Eikenberry, neither of whom has been able to establish anything like the relationship with President Hamid Karzai that McChrystal painstakingly built up.

The post-McChrystal situation is replete with irony. Obama, who won the Democratic nomination on the back of his anti-war rhetoric, is now doubling down on a war being run by George W Bush's Pentagon chief, Robert Gates, and Bush's Iraq commander, Petraeus.

It has not escaped the attention of the anti-war Left that although firing McChrystal was justified as a way of asserting civilian control over the military, the result is the opposite. Petraeus is a much more popular figure than Obama and has deeper ties across the full spectrum of the Washington establishment than any general since Colin Powell (who, incidentally, Obama consulted about firing McChrystal).

The reality is that Petraeus can pretty much do what he wants now. Obama probably wouldn't sack him if he kneed Biden in the groin. Petraeus, as was his acolyte McChrystal, is rightly sceptical about Obama's promise to start withdrawing troops from July 2011.

No military commander likes an artificial timetable imposed on him, never mind a nakedly political one designed to suit Obama's 2012 re-election campaign.

In getting rid of McChrystal, Obama has also risked hastening the departure of Gates, who vies with his ally Clinton for the title of most effective and respected Cabinet secretary.

Gates (like, another irony, McChrystal) - is beyond reproach in the leaking game in which Holbrooke and Eikenberry, or their ciphers, have engaged. He is notorious for firing senior officers and officials but advised Obama to keep McChrystal.

His reward for that private counsel was to have White House officials brief reporters about it to boost the image of Obama as the take-charge decider.

Little noticed amid the McChrystal kerfuffle was the announcement that Obama's wunderkind budget director, the nerdy but lusty Peter Orszag (a 41-year-old divorcee, last year he fathered a child out of wedlock with one glamourpuss and became engaged to another), was departing the administration. A prime reason, Orszag has let it be known, has been his inability to get on with Larry Summers, the Holbrooke of the economic team. The feuding between the staffs of Orszag and Summers had made McChrystal and Eikenberry look like best buddies.

So Obama would do well to avoid congratulating himself on winning last week's news cycle by brutally ending McChrystal's illustrious career. He has further alienated the broader military constituency and done nothing to curtail the in-fighting among his top foreign policy officials, who are apeing their economic counterparts.

With members of his inner circle like Emanuel and David Axelrod likely to return to Chicago after November's mid-term elections, Obama could find the White House a very lonely place next year.

[Lemur]

Let's just note for the record that Toby Harnden's entire business strategy involves attracting links from Matt Drudge's site, which makes Harnden the most echoey subdivision of the rightwing echo chamber. (Exemplum gratum: were you aware that 2008 was the year of the Matt Drudge election? Neither was I. But boy did it get traffic.) To cite him as a source for a rightwing argument is roughly akin to citing Michael Moore for a leftwing argument; the source leaves much to be desired.

He makes about fourteen separate arguments for why Obama sacking McCrhystal is the Worst Decision of All Time, apparently following the throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks school of rhetoric. Certainly the most amusing one is that by losing McChrystal we're losing our super-special access to Hamid Karzai (who kept McChrystal from beginning the Marja offensive for hours while he conducted a Presidential nap).

There's plenty to get frustrated with the current President, and plenty of legitimate attacks on his actions that you can make. Harnden's shotgun approach, however, only serves to inflame those already convinced of his conclusions. "Preaching to the choir" is the most apt metaphor for this sort of exercise.

[PanzerJaeger]

You read way too much Andy Sullivan. You're starting to mimic him almost exactly.

In any event, I know Mr. Harnden may not be up to the standards of your "Military Reader"... err officer... whatever, but I did not post the editorial to cite any particular argument, as we seem to have hit on them all already. I just liked it and wanted to share. Shame on my giving nature!

Now that you've played the man, how about the ball?

[Lemur]

Now that you've played the man, how about the ball?

If you're citing the famous Backroom maxim, you're gloriously, deliriously misunderstanding its meaning. Were I to put you into play, I would be playing the man; by pointing out that your source does you no credit, I'm playing the ball, which you helpfully lobbed from the sidelines. You put the ball into play, I gave it a little tap.

And as I said, Harnden's strategy involves putting about fourteen different points into play, almost all of them arguable and/or spurious. Pick one and we can go at it like gentlemen; I refuse to respond to scattershot, incoherent arguments, beyond pointing out that they are, in fact, scattershot and incoherent.

[PanzerJaeger]

Your very specific Backroom-oriented definition aside, I am actually pretty confident in my usage of the term. You directed the vast majority of your attention to the writer of the editorial I posted (the man) without saying much about his specific points (the ball), except to say that he had several - which is somehow worse than having only one.

Frankly, I find the new found interest in editorial integrity odd, coming from a guy who posts random comments from anonymous blog readers and ascribes them important-sounding titles to give their points more weight.

Now, I am not able to confirm or deny a specific business agreement between Mr. Harnden and Mr. Drudge as I have not taken to time to investigate; and to be honest, I don’t really know how such an agreement would change the points made in the editorial. I do know that Mr. Harnden does at least work for a major periodical and is at least willing to put his name behind his comments, unlike a certain military reader I know.

[Lemur]

Did we drink a bad cup of coffee this morning? Where's the cheerful Panzer we all know and love?

Let's address your points in order:

(1) There's nothing Backroom-specific about the definition; rather, the maxim is used most often in the Backroom, while applying to the entire Org. Not sure where you're going with this line of argument. It's weird even by your standards.

(2) Explain to me how the marital problems of Peter Orszag have any relevance to an essay about Obama, McChrystal and Afghanistan. Harnden's problem is not that he makes too many points; it's that they're all over the place. I addressed one in my initial response; feel free to respond at your leisure.

(3) You keep flogging that COIN post from Sully, as though you think you've found a winning ticket with it. Try one more time; lucky number four! You may have begun this thread with a thesis which has failed to gain any traction with anyone, and you may have failed to carry the day with any of your arguments in-thread, and you may be finding yourself to the far-right of National Review, Fox News and just about every military commentator, but by gawd Lemur went too far when he inferred that an anonymous military commenter was an officer! Keep at it, you've almost carried the day!

(4) So you can't defend Harnden, won't defend Harnden, and none of it matters anyway. Masterful.

As I said, pick a point that Harnden made that you think is surprising, relevant, and/or true. Copy/paste debating is beneath you.

[Vladimir]

I think Lemur visits the backroom to have passionate yet somewhat reasoned conversation with patrons while most of us are here to drink, vent our frustrations, and throw knives at the wall.

All under the watch full eye of a large, bald bartender with a huge meat cleaver and a few shadowy men in hoods.

[PanzerJaeger]

Did we drink a bad cup of coffee this morning? Where's the cheerful Panzer we all know and love?

Present and accounted for, sir! I'm as chipper as always, just a bit surprised that someone whose modus oporandi is posting clippings from random and certainly biased blogs to support/make his points threw such a fit over that editorial.

Let's address your points in order:

Sure thing!

(1) There's nothing Backroom-specific about the definition; rather, the maxim is used most often in the Backroom, while applying to the entire Org. Not sure where you're going with this line of argument. It's weird even by your standards.

My only argument is that I did, in fact, use the term correctly, despite your definition.

(2) Explain to me how the marital problems of Peter Orszag have any relevance to an essay about Obama, McChrystal and Afghanistan. Harnden's problem is not that he makes too many points; it's that they're all over the place. I addressed one in my initial response; feel free to respond at your leisure.

Editorials often bring together disparate events to paint a broader picture. It's really rather common. You seem to be under the impression that I posted the editorial as some sort of thesis on the subject, not because I thought it was an interesting opinion.

(3) You keep flogging that COIN post from Sully, as though you think you've found a winning ticket with it. Try one more time; lucky number four! You may have begun this thread with a thesis which has failed to gain any traction with anyone, and you may have failed to carry the day with any of your arguments in-thread, and you may be finding yourself to the far-right of National Review, Fox News and just about every military commentator, but by gawd Lemur went too far when he inferred that an anonymous military commenter was an officer! Keep at it, you've almost carried the day!

I considered pursuing that avenue as I thought it was a rather sketchy thing for you to do. However, I decided to respect what I thought was ceasefire of sorts reached in prior discussions and let it go. Of course, the hypocrisy of you then going after the source of what I clearly posted as an editorial – an opinion - caused me to reconsider.

I do find it rather odd that you seem to be criticizing my inability to change people's minds, as if minds are changed frequently in the Backroom, or that I'm even interested in such a goal. I gave that up many years ago. I post here because I enjoy sharing my opinions and reading those of others.

Finally, I’m not sure why you would think that I would put much stock in where I stand on a particular issue vis-à-vis Fox News.

(4) So you can't defend Harnden, won't defend Harnden, and none of it matters anyway. Masterful.

Defend him from what? Your lame parroting of an Andrew Sullivan blog posting? Are you prepared to defend Sullivan from any criticisms of him I can pull off the internet?

As I said, pick a point that Harnden made that you think is surprising, relevant, and/or true. Copy/paste debating is beneath you.

Sure. You took issue with Harnden’s assertion that losing McChrystal’s good relationship with Karzai is a bad thing. However, you seem to be reading from a very old set of talking points. Karzai is our partner in the region, whether we like it or not. Obama and team could have chosen to pursue their campaign to discredit him, but it was decided, surely out of necessity, that he had to be kept around. So, considering how important the local government is to COIN, I think it is certainly better to have a commander on the ground with a good working relationship with the local leadership than have one that will have to build such a relationship amid the most critical of stages of the conflict, or to not have a good relationship at all.

[Lemur]

My only argument is that I did, in fact, use the term correctly, despite your definition.

Yes, I invented that reading of "play the ball not the man," and I did it all on my own. My sole reason was to confound you. Curses! Foiled again! "Play the ball, not the man" has nothing to do with ad hominem attacks or the personalization of debate; it really means that you can never question another poster's sources. How did you find me out?

You seem to be under the impression that I posted the editorial as some sort of thesis on the subject, not because I thought it was an interesting opinion.

If the entire rambling essay is naught more than an "interesting opinion," why are you going on about it, then?

You took issue with Harnden’s assertion that losing McChrystal’s good relationship with Karzai is a bad thing. [...] Karzai is our partner in the region, whether we like it or not. Obama and team could have chosen to pursue their campaign to discredit him, but it was decided, surely out of necessity, that he had to be kept around.

At last! Something resembling substance! Wheeeeee!

First of all, please substantiate Obama's "campaign to discredit [Khazai]." By all accounts, President Khazai has been at turns ineffective, unpopular, corrupt and duplicitous. As I understand it, based on nothing more than reading, the civilian government in Afghanistan is the single biggest weakness in our COIN strategy. Correct me if you've heard differently.

Given this, how crucial is McChrystal's relationship with Karzai? What was he accomplishing with the President that another commander, with the initials D.P., cannot? Your essayist presents this relationship, and its end, as a completely understood disaster that we need not substantiate. I call male bovine fecal matter.

So, considering how important the local government is to COIN, I think it is certainly better to have a commander on the ground with a good working relationship with the local leadership than have one that will have to build such a relationship amid the most critical of stages of the conflict, or to not have a good relationship at all.

Again, every intelligent analyst I have read on the subject agrees that the civilian government is our #1 weakness in Afghanistan. Not the generals, not the money, not the diplomats, not Obama, not the previous administration, not troop morale, not the various strategies, and so on and so forth. The lack of a legitimate, effective civilian partner is the insoluble imponderable.

I'd like to see you address this, frankly, since most of the time your interest in Afghanistan appears to begin and end with how it serves as a talking point contra Obama.

Let's say P.J. is made President tomorrow. What do we do about our civilian partners in Afghanistan? And no, this is not a dodge or a changing of the subject, although you have dismissed every such thought exercise as such previously. It is not enough to robotically criticize every move our President makes; please demonstrate that you have given this some sort of thought beyond the partisan snipe line.

You seem to believe that there is some sort of clear path to victory. You demonstrate this belief by consistently claiming that President 44 is deviating from it. So it is not in any way out of order to ask, "Tell us, P.J., what is this path to victory, and what does your notion of victory look like?" Bonus points if you can construct your answer in terms that require less than five decades.

[Louis VI the Fat]

[PanzerJaeger]

Yes, I invented that reading of "play the ball not the man," and I did it all on my own. My sole reason was to confound you. Curses! Foiled again! "Play the ball, not the man" has nothing to do with ad hominem attacks or the personalization of debate; it really means that you can never question another poster's sources. How did you find me out?

I don't understand how you cannot see that the term can be applied to your attacking the author of the editorial instead of his points.

And now I'm questioning your understanding of what a "source" is. I wasn't sourcing anything with that editorial. If I had cited it as proof of X, Y, or Z, then yes, noting that it is opinion-oriented would have been appropriate. However, attacking an editorial, clearly posted as such, for bias is a little bit like attacking the NRA for being pro-gun rights. That is, it is excruciatingly obvious.

If the entire rambling essay is naught more than an "interesting opinion," why are you going on about it, then?

I'm not. I have barely mentioned anything about it in this whole exchange.

As I have said, what I am surprised about is that a member who constantly posts opinionated, and occassionally sketchy, blog entries to back up his opinions launched such a scathing attack on an editorial that I posted - which wasn't even in support of any particular point. I would say it was the pot calling the kettle black, but my "kettle" didn't even rise to the level of your "pot".

At last! Something resembling substance! Wheeeeee!

And your parroting of Andrew Sullivan that started this exchange was literally full of substance!

First of all, please substantiate Obama's "campaign to discredit [Khazai]." By all accounts, President Khazai has been at turns ineffective, unpopular, corrupt and duplicitous. As I understand it, based on nothing more than reading, the civilian government in Afghanistan is the single biggest weakness in our COIN strategy. Correct me if you've heard differently.

I am referring to the very public row the two leaders had a few months back. Please don't confuse my words as a defense of Karzai. I agree that he is all of those things and probably more, but he is also the president's chosen partner in the country. The one thing that could be worse to our war effort than a good relationship with Karzai is a bad one.

Given this, how crucial is McChrystal's relationship with Karzai? What was he accomplishing with the President that another commander, with the initials D.P., cannot?

Considering the high context, tribal nature of Afghani politics, I would say it was pretty important. D.P. may be a hero in America, but that may or may not translate to Karzai's administration. Regardless, building a relationship will take time and effort, which is time and effort that could and should be focused elsewhere during this critical stage in the war.

Again, every intelligent analyst I have read on the subject agrees that the civilian government is our #1 weakness in Afghanistan. Not the generals, not the money, not the diplomats, not Obama, not the previous administration, not troop morale, not the various strategies, and so on and so forth. The lack of a legitimate, effective civilian partner is the insoluble imponderable.

Again, I agree. Apparently, though, the White House has decided that he is our only option, so I cannot see how destroying a good relationship between him and our top commander in the field can be seen as anything other than a negative. secretary Gates seems to agree.

You seem to believe that there is some sort of clear path to victory. You demonstrate this belief by consistently claiming that President 44 is deviating from it. So it is not in any way out of order to ask, "Tell us, P.J., what is this path to victory, and what does your notion of victory look like?" Bonus points if you can construct your answer in terms that require less than five decades.

Ahh, Lemur's classic "solve Afghanistan in a discussion board post or you're not allowed to criticize my prez!!"

Well, I can tell you that my solution would involve giving my top commander the troops he requests and not imposing an arbitrary timeline on him based on my own reelection campaign.

[Lemur]

I don't understand how you cannot see that the term can be applied to your attacking the author of the editorial instead of his points.

Epic reading comprehension fail, which you clearly have no intention of correcting. Let's move on from your cul-de-sac.

However, attacking an editorial, clearly posted as such, for bias is a little bit like attacking the NRA for being pro-gun rights. That is, it is excruciatingly obvious.

Bias? I said the essay was sloppily written, that the author was a known hack, and that the source did you no credit. "Bias" is the least part of that argument, but whatever, carry on.

And your parroting of Andrew Sullivan that started this exchange was literally full of substance!

You keep invoking Andrew Sullivan as though he were a mystical figure who could imbue your rhetoric with weight, your arguments with substance. It's quite fascinating, actually. Invoke him again! Keep mentioning Sullivan! You're on a wining streak, there! (How did you get so obsessed with the man, anyway?)

Ahh, Lemur's classic "solve Afghanistan in a discussion board post or you're not allowed to criticize my prez!!"

Ah, Panzer's classic, "If I can dismiss the poster without answering a legit question, I'll dance away in my pink ballet slippers, laughing my silvery bell of a laugh." I spelled out, in terms you cannot or will not address, why asking for your take on victory in Afghanistan is legitimate. If you'd like to be taken as something more than a spoiler and a partisan snipe, you can address that issue someday.

As I said, your interest in Afghanistan seems to begin and end with Obama. This thread has done nothing to dispel that impression.

[Gregoshi]

This is like watching a classic western showdown - except the one gunslinger is in Dodge and the other in Tombstone.

[Lemur]

True dat. Honestly, I'm getting bored, but I'm keen to see how far Panzer will take his last-word-itis. So for the sake of science I will soldier on.

[Gregoshi]

Ah, will he leave Dodge before you leave Tombstone? How about you two call it a "draw"?

[PanzerJaeger]

You keep invoking Andrew Sullivan as though he were a mystical figure who could imbue your rhetoric with weight, your arguments with substance. It's quite fascinating, actually. Invoke him again! Keep mentioning Sullivan! You're on a wining streak, there! (How did you get so obsessed with the man, anyway?)

Wait, now I’m obsessed with ‘ol Andy? You constantly link to him, mimic his opinions on other editorialists nearly word for word, and even elevate random, anonymous readers of his blog to importance, even granting them military ranks! And I’m obsessed?

Ah, Panzer's classic, "If I can dismiss the poster without answering a legit question, I'll dance away in my pink ballet slippers, laughing my silvery bell of a laugh." I spelled out, in terms you cannot or will not address, why asking for your take on victory in Afghanistan is legitimate. If you'd like to be taken as something more than a spoiler and a partisan snipe, you can address that issue someday.

Amazing! You accuse me of dismissing your “legit” question while ignoring the very next paragraph, where I, in fact, address your question.

As I said, your interest in Afghanistan seems to begin and end with Obama. This thread has done nothing to dispel that impression.

And this thread has also done nothing but reinforce my impression that you’re still carrying water for Obama. I guess there isn’t much we can do about other’s impressions.

Ah, will he leave Dodge before you leave Tombstone? How about you two call it a "draw"?

I think we’ve been through the good, the bad, and certainly the ugly in this little exchange. I’m done.

[Lemur]

And I’m obsessed?

Yup, I think you're got some kind of twisted bromance for Andrew Sullivan. You have suddenly become unable to write an entire post without referencing the man; clearly you have feelings. Don't be ashamed. It's 2010, after all.

You constantly link to him

Yah, that's in your imagination, darling, but that's okay; manly attraction can cloud one's judgment. Obviously the one link to him in this thread has assumed ... strong, throbbing proportions in your mind. Indeed, since I linked to him that once, it's been hard to get you to talk about anything else. Obsess much?

For the record, I also linked to National Review, NPR, Washington Independent and Clive Crook in this thread. But none of them got a bee in your jockstrap quite like Andy Sullivan, whom you've been mewling about ever since.

I think we’ve been through the good, the bad, and certainly the ugly in this little exchange. I’m done.

But are you capable of resisting your impulse to get in the last word? Inquiring minds want to know.

P.S.: Nice italics, by the way.

[Gregoshi]

But are you capable of resisting your impulse to get in the last word? Inquiring minds want to know.

That is a tough thing to say Lemur and not be self-applicable. You could let me have the last word and both of you can save face.

No they cannot...but I can.