Barack Obama names General Petraeus to replace General McChrystal

  Barack Obama has accepted General McChrystal’s resignation and has replaced him with the great General Petraeus– the man who engineered and brought us victory in the Iraq war. A better choice could not have been.

  With the revelations of General McChrystal’s comments in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine Barack Obama had no choice but to let him go. As much as I respect General McChrystal’s 30 year military career– and agree with the comments that he made– he just could not make the comments that he made as an active general in a war when we have our brave men and women fighting and dying under his command. I truly believe that the general is a good man and that he just had a lapse of judgement, but that does not excuse him from his comments.

  So today Barack Obama announced that General Petraeus would take over the war in Afghanistan saying:

He has my full confidence and I am urging the Senate to confirm him for this new assignment as swiftly as possible

  But that was not always the case now was it? Barack Obama vehemently opposed the surge in Iraq that General Petraeus engineered and even after the surge brought us victory Barack Obama refused to admit that he was wrong and the surge was a success. He even went so far as to stubbornly state that he still wouldn’t have approved the surge even after it was shown to have succeeded.

  And on top of that, when congress held a vote to condemn moveon.org’s disgusting “General Betray-us” ad, Barack Obama couldn’t be bothered to vote one way or the other on the resolution– upholding his long standing tradition of not voting on issues. He was afraid of alienating both moveon.org and his liberal, anti-war base and because of this he refused to do what was right and instead decided to do what was easy– nothing.

  So now the liberal messiah has turned to the man that he refused to defend; he has turned to the man whose surge policy he did not support; he has turned to General Petraeus to save the Afghanistan war. And while there is probably no better person to be in charge of the Afghanistan war, it will be interesting to see how politicians like Hillary Clinton– who called General Petraeus a liar on the floor of congress– react to the news that he has been reassigned to a field command once again.

    Will they give this man the full support that he deserves now that it is Barack Obama that has turned to him– the same support that he deserved in the Iraq war, or will they continue to ridicule and demean him? Will we see such deplorable ads as the “General Betray-us” ad or will moveon.org suddenly support Barack Obama’s decision, or will they just ignore this story in the same manner that the media has been ignoring the war since Barack Obama’s election?

  This whole episode should provide Barack Obama with the type of teachable moment that he loves so much. It was easy for Barack Obama to ridicule General Petraeus’ plan for a surge in Iraq when he had no responsibility in fighting a war. It was easy for Barack Obama to blow off voting on a resolution to condemn the “General Betray-us” ad when he was void of responsibility. But now he finds himself in a position where he must make decisions, and he is in a position of responsibility, so it is no longer so easy to be flippant on issues of the gravest import any more. He could afford to wait for President Bush to take a position and then naturally take the opposite position when he had no stake in the outcome, but as president he can no longer do so. He now has responsibility and he is finding out the hard way that it is much harder to make decisions and lead than it is to just sit back and oppose. His decisions now go well beyond the political realm– his decisions literally are between life and death and this has to be somewhat of an awakening for him.

  In this case Barack Obama– in my opinion– has made two correct choices. First; he accepted General McChrystal’s resignation, and second; he put General Petraeus in charge of the war in Afghanistan. Now all he needs to do is untie the general’s hands, let him go to work, and the outcome will be the same as it was in Iraq.