Stanley McChrystal, the Runaway General, is Back
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who was fired from his job as top U.S. commander in Afghanistan after a Rolling Stone profile quoted his aides talking trash about civilian leaders, is back, the New York Times reports today. The Obama administration has invited him to helm a “high profile” initiative in support of military families.
Here’s a telling snippet from the July 2010 profile, by Michael Hastings.
Even though he had voted for Obama, McChrystal and his new commander in chief failed from the outset to connect. The general first encountered Obama a week after he took office, when the president met with a dozen senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known as the Tank. According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked “uncomfortable and intimidated” by the roomful of military brass. Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn’t go much better. “It was a 10-minute photo op,” says an adviser to McChrystal. “Obama clearly didn’t know anything about him, who he was. Here’s the guy who’s going to run his fucking war, but he didn’t seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed.”
Read the full story here: The Runaway General: The Rolling Stone profile of Stanley McChrystal that changed history