Smart career move?

(photo by Master Sgt. Jerry Morrison, via Wikipedia)

Did General Stanley A. McChrystal want to be fired? Was it all a clever plot? That's what David Brin suggests:

Why, then, has nobody in the mass media even considered the simplest hypothesis --

-- that McChrystal did it all on purpose? ...

Consider the Liddy-North Effect, named for convicted criminals G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North, whose conspiratorial efforts to undermine lawful government should have ensured perpetual infamy, but who instead went straight from prison to cushy roles as ranting hatchetmen in an oligarchy-subsidized punditry. What these men proved is that, unless you are caught eviscerating small animals or children on video, there is nothing -- no misbehavior -- that will prevent a prominent and macho critic of democrats from getting a paid gig on Fox News or Venom Radio.  Indeed, the more choleric, insulting and pyrotechnically disrespectful the behavior, the more likely you will get a plum slot.

Hence, it is with no lack of grudging respect that I predict this fellow will slip comfortably into whatever retirement engagement he has lined up, and we will see his face and hear his voice for the next 20 years, reading whatever talking points are put in front of him, whining - like Ollie North - about his Martyrdom at the hands of cursed liberals.

Hey, you gotta hand it to a tactician, who -- upon approaching inevitable retirement -- maps out the perfect campaign to optimize his results, forcing the hand of his boss, creating a situation where the president has no option at all, but to fire a “fighting general” and send him on his strategically planned way.

What do you think? Will McChrystal reappear in a lucrative gig on Fox News? Will he write bestsellers or get his own talk radio show? Was all this a plan to make loads of money, never mind what it would cost our country? Brin discusses the evidence and makes it all seem very plausible. And although he doesn't mention Sarah Palin, her leap from being a half-term governor to multimillionaire quitter might have been persuasive, too. But right now, it's all just speculation.

Incidentally, here's another interesting section of Brin's post:

...McChrystal's antipathy for democrats is not universal among his peers.  Indeed, I have long made a strong case that the US Officer Corps should be considered among the top victims of the insanity known as Neoconservatism.  That movement’s relentless war against every reservoir of sagacity and expertise - its one consistent program - has extended far beyond Tea Party populism, the War on Science, and the campaign to demolish and disable the US Civil Service (with effects we now see in the Gulf of Mexico).  It also featured the most outrageous meddling by politicians in military affairs - for political reasons - that we have seen since the Vietnam War.

The harm done by the neocons to the military, and especially the US Army is well-documented; when Bill Clinton left office, every Army and Marine brigade was deemed by military auditors to be  “fully combat ready.”  After George Bush was done, the number of “war ready” brigades was precisely zero.  And though the conversion of our land forces from supremely potent battlefield dominators to bedraggled counter insurgency swat-teams went uncriticized on the right, it contributed to desperate worry among the top members of the Officer Corps.  Well, most of them.

But the rational members of the U.S. officer corps stay out of politics, so by and large, we citizens haven't heard any "desperate worry" about political meddling - and we probably won't. Besides, in the public mind, the GOP is firmly linked with supporting our military, just because that's their reputation (erroneous though it might be). The Democrats are just the reverse. When Barack Obama increased funding for the military, the Republican Party claimed that he was cutting military spending. And although the evidence was clear, the uninformed general public seemed to buy the lie, just because it fit with that long-term mental image.

The right-wing may be terrible at governing, hopeless at science, and embarrassingly bad with economics, but they seem to be very good at politics.