The President blasts Republicans in the Senate who are blocking unemployment insurance and small business tax breaks to create jobs, even as they push for permanent, massive tax cuts for the richest Americans.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Ta-Neishi Coates's final thought...
Published in its entirety:
Here is former head and current spokesperson for the Tea Party Express Mark Williams satirically responding to the NAACP:Dear Mr. Lincoln
We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don't cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!
In fact we held a big meeting and took a vote in Kansas City this week. We voted to condemn a political revival of that old abolitionist spirit called the 'tea party movement'.
The tea party position to "end the bailouts" for example is just silly. Bailouts are just big money welfare and isn't that what we want all Coloreds to strive for? What kind of racist would want to end big money welfare? What they need to do is start handing the bail outs directly to us coloreds! Of course, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the only responsible party that should be granted the right to disperse the funds.
And the ridiculous idea of "reduce[ing] the size and intrusiveness of government." What kind of massa would ever not want to control my life? As Coloreds we must have somebody care for us otherwise we would be on our own, have to think for ourselves and make decisions!
The racist tea parties also demand that the government "stop the out of control spending." Again, they directly target coloreds. That means we Coloreds would have to compete for jobs like everybody else and that is just not right.
Perhaps the most racist point of all in the tea parties is their demand that government "stop raising our taxes." That is outrageous! How will we coloreds ever get a wide screen TV in every room if non-coloreds get to keep what they earn? Totally racist! The tea party expects coloreds to be productive members of society?
Mr. Lincoln, you were the greatest racist ever. We had a great gig. Three squares, room and board, all our decisions made by the massa in the house. Please repeal the 13th and 14th Amendments and let us get back to where we belong.
Sincerely
Precious Ben Jealous, Tom's Nephew
NAACP Head Colored Person
Williams has since taken the original down and posted a half-hearted justification. Mark Williams is the same man who has denounced Barack Obama as "Indonesian Muslim" and a "welfare thug." If Mark Williams is not a racist, then there are no racists in American society--a position which many, some liberals among them, no doubt find plausible.
It's been asked in comments, a few times, what good has come of the NAACP's resolution. I would not endeavor to speak for anyone but myself when I say that I owe the NAACP a debt of gratitude. I have, in my writing, a tendency to become theoretically cute, and overly enamored with my own fair-mindedness. Such vanity has lately been manifested in the form of phrases like "it's worth saying" and "it strikes me that..." or "respectfully..."
When engaging your adversaries, that approach has its place. But it's worth saying that there are other approaches and other places. Among them--respectfully administering the occasional reminder as to the precise nature of the motherfuckers you are dealing with. It strikes me that this is a most appropriate role for the nation's oldest civil rights organization.
Ta-Neishi Coates says it for me...
This is starting to be a trend.
First Chris Bodenner (writing for the vacationing Andrew Sullivan) wrote this:
And then he followed up with this:
I cannot think of a more stupid (and yes, frankly...racist) sentence to write in the English language than that.
Why is it that every time there is racist action on the part of White Americans, and Black Americans have the temerity to protest it or just let folks know it happened; it always becomes our fault? It's never the people who committed the racist action, it's always something we should have done better.
I put the following in an email to Ta-Neishi Coates, the writer who touched off Mr. Bodenner's comments:
Dave Weigel chimed in today, following through on the "the NAACP shouldn't have done this" meme :
Suddenly, I find myself just a little less sympathetic to Mr. Weigel's dismissal by the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago.
But finally, Ta-Neishi stepped up, and wrote back to Mr. Bodenner and Mr. Weigel:
Well said. (Though I do put Dave Weigel in the category of failed "sensible" writers.)
First Chris Bodenner (writing for the vacationing Andrew Sullivan) wrote this:
Ta-Nehisi, who has been critical of the NAACP in the past, can't side with me, Weigel, and others exasperated with the group's Tea Party resolution
...
For me the issue is a practical matter; was the NAACP resolution helpful for race relations? Based on the immediate and inflammatory backlash showcased in the MSM, I think not.
And then he followed up with this:
Perhaps the NAACP could have approached [Tea Party Movement] leaders in private first, offering to help with a PR strategy to purge the racist elements of the movement from its core, small government message. That would have been the Obama-esque approach. But publicly shaming the [Tea Party Movement] into doing so doesn't seem smart or pragmatic.
I cannot think of a more stupid (and yes, frankly...racist) sentence to write in the English language than that.
Why is it that every time there is racist action on the part of White Americans, and Black Americans have the temerity to protest it or just let folks know it happened; it always becomes our fault? It's never the people who committed the racist action, it's always something we should have done better.
I put the following in an email to Ta-Neishi Coates, the writer who touched off Mr. Bodenner's comments:
Perhaps the Rodney King could have approached L.A. Police in private first, offering to help with a PR strategy to purge the racist elements from their ranks and get them to stop beating the hell out of him. That would have been the Obama-esque approach.
Dave Weigel chimed in today, following through on the "the NAACP shouldn't have done this" meme :
When I said the NAACP's move would backfire, I meant things like this would happen. I didn't mean they were wrong to go down that road. It's just that they should know that calling out a group for "racism" is pointless -- whoever's been targeted will simply claim to have been attacked unfairly and had his free speech threatened. Remember what happened when Eric Holder said that America had been a "nation of cowards" in discussing race. Boom: Backlash. Anger. Debate over why he said it, but not what he meant. A year and change later we have a ridiculous national debate over whether Holder's department hates white people because it won't draw and quarter the New Black Panther Party. This stuff is what he meant, of course. But saying it isn't actually starting the debate. It's pretty obvious that the NAACP failed here.
Suddenly, I find myself just a little less sympathetic to Mr. Weigel's dismissal by the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago.
But finally, Ta-Neishi stepped up, and wrote back to Mr. Bodenner and Mr. Weigel:
To the extent that the NAACP has, as Dave says, "failed," it is because the arbiters of facts have ceded ground, and reporters and writers dutifully, and uncritically, dispense the notion that an organization which helped birth modern America has "a long history of...racism." But it also fails because there is very little pushback on this notion from "sensible" liberal writers. (I don't include Dave among them, mind you.) Instead we're getting calls for the president to condemn the NAACP, essentially, for being the NAACP.
Dave concedes that the NAACP has a case, but concludes that they're wrong for making it. But they're only wrong for making it because the broader society, evidently, believes that objecting to a call for literacy tests is, in fact, just as racist as a call for literacy tests. This inversion, this crime against sound logic, is at the heart of American white supremacy, and at the heart of a country that has nurtured white supremacy all these sad glorious years.
It is the Founders claiming all men are created equal while building a democracy on property in human beings. It is Confederates crying tyranny, while erecting a country based on tyranny. It is Sherman discriminating against black soldiers, while claiming that his superiors are discriminating against whites. It's Ben Tillman justifying racial terrorism, by claiming that he's actually fighting against terrorism. It is George Wallace defending a system built on bombing children in churches, and then asserting that the upholders of that system are "the greatest people to ever trod this earth."
Those who employ racism are not in the habit of confessing their nature--inversion is their cloak. Cutting out the cancer means confronting that inversion, means not wallowing in on-the-other-handism, in post-racialism, means seeing this as more than some kind of political game. Someone has, indeed, failed here. It is not the NAACP.
Well said. (Though I do put Dave Weigel in the category of failed "sensible" writers.)
Spoken like someone who's never had to work for a vote in his life...
Krugman, after repeating a story from Rep. David Obey about how the Stimulus was formed, and downgraded:
When Krugman says stuff like this, it's hard to believe he's got a college degree much less a PhD from an acclaimed University. Yeah, the White House staff works for the President, but the Congress...you know the people who actually vote on stuff...work for the people in their districts. The President isn't a CEO, despite what Dubya would have you believe. He can't snap his fingers and get anyone in the Congress to do his bidding. The system was never set up that way. I thought that was a good thing.
But remember, the Cossacks work for the czar.
When Krugman says stuff like this, it's hard to believe he's got a college degree much less a PhD from an acclaimed University. Yeah, the White House staff works for the President, but the Congress...you know the people who actually vote on stuff...work for the people in their districts. The President isn't a CEO, despite what Dubya would have you believe. He can't snap his fingers and get anyone in the Congress to do his bidding. The system was never set up that way. I thought that was a good thing.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Joe Klein (also) says it for me...
More pushback on the Washington Post story, this time coming from the pen of Joe Klein on the pages of Time. It's not all positive, but...:
It's all in how you want to spin it.
The reading and spinning of polls is more alchemy than science. The Washington Post, in its infinite wisdom, leads that paper today with this headline: 6 in 10 Americans lack faith in Obama. Uh-oh...paging Pete Wehner and the rest of the sky-is-falling crowd.
And, of course, the numbers are not great news for the President. But it takes 15--count 'em--paragraphs to get to this little news nugget: Obama has a 50-47% approval rating. How on earth can that be? Well, it turns out that Americans don't have much faith in any politicians. Indeed, people have more faith in Obama than they do in most anyone else: if 58% say they have "some" or "no" faith in him, 68% say the same about the Democrats in Congress...and 72% have no faith in the Republicans.
So, what's this all about? Tough times, mostly. Let's take a test: Do you have faith that the President is doing the right thing on the economy? My answer: I don't have a clue. Actually, at the moment, I'm leaning toward "no" because Obama seems to be tilting against stimulus and toward short-term deficit reduction--which could swing us into a double-dip recession.
This is also about the over-hyping of polls. Newspapers pay lots of money for them and hope they will create a splash. In this case, the real news is no news. The President's approval ratings remain pretty good, given all the lousy news abroad in the land--and pretty stable as well. The Congressional Democrats, on the other hand, have a lot to worry about.
It's all in how you want to spin it.
Jonathan Chait says it for me...
I've been a mite bit depressed about the Washington Post story that appeared this morning about the President's poll numbers (Dad will attest to this). I was going to write something about the general foolishness of the American public, but Jonathan Chait of the New Republic beat me to it:
My honest assessment is that the Democrats are going to lose seats, but the only way they lose either of the houses is if Democrats don't show up.
So Democrats? Show the @#$% up.
The poll shows that, among registered voters, 47% plan to vote for a Republican in the House elections, and 46% for a Democrat. (Among voters most likely to vote, the GOP leads 49-45.) At the same time, the poll also shows that the public clearly favors the Democrats over the Republicans. The Post story about the poll leads with the fact that only 43% of the public has confidence in President Obama to make the right decisions for the country's future. That's low. But only 26% have confidence in Republicans in Congress to make the right decisions, which is far lower than Obama, and even lower than Congressional Democrats, in whom 32% have confidence. That's not an anomaly. Asked which party will do a better job of handling the economy, 42% say the Democrats and 34% say the GOP.
So, in sum, there's a crucial swing vote bloc that prefers the policies of the Democrats over the Republicans but plans to vote for the Republicans anyway.
My honest assessment is that the Democrats are going to lose seats, but the only way they lose either of the houses is if Democrats don't show up.
So Democrats? Show the @#$% up.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
The Fireside chat for July 10, 2010 (VIDEO)
President Obama announces that the Department of Veterans Affairs, led by Secretary Shinseki, will begin making it easier for veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to receive the benefits and treatment they need.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Ego run amok. Part 2.
The Attorney General for West Virginia gives the go ahead for Governor Joe Manchin's ego trip--err, I mean Special Election.
How does the deficit affect LeBron's decision?
Wow. A non-politics post.
We had a 5.4 Earthquake here in SoCal, and I asked "How does the Earthquake affect LeBron's decision"
Speaking of ego run amok...
Listen, I’ve been on record (in the non-blogsphere world) saying over and over again that LeBron is staying in Cleveland. Even though it’s starting to look very much like I was wrong on this one, I’m going to stick with my prediction to the bitter end. Why? Because I cannot believe that this multi-millionaire Athlete, who can live anywhere in the world, and chooses to live in Akron, Ohio (because clearly he loves it), is going to give that up...and take less money in the process.
If Art Modell had to leave Cleveland for his own safety, do you really think that Bitter Cleveland fan is going to let LeBron off the hook? At least Modell was a New York native. Prince James doesn’t have that excuse. Cleveland fans have been through tough times, and are even tougher people, and they’ll hold onto a grudge until hell won’t have it no more.
But since I’m not from Cleveland, I just root for the team, I’d like to think I have a little perspective on LeBron James. I like the guy, but I don't love him like Ohio fan does. I think he is vastly overrated. I think he's a smart kid, but not a very bright one (and there is a difference). I think he truly believes that if he bolts to Miami, he’ll be forgiven by the people of Ohio.
Never in a million years.
Only a individual with his titanic ego would buy himself an hour of national (basic cable) television time, to tell the people of Ohio to @#$% off, and somehow expect them to be grateful for it. (I heard Stephen A. Ego---errr, I mean Stephen A. Smith on the Jim Rome show this morning saying that LeBron has nothing to apologize for. I think he’s living in the same bubble as LeBron and his crew).
There will be no gratitude, no thanks and no fond memories from the fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers. All they can do is pick themselves up, dust themselves off, draft well, let Byron Scott coach ‘em up, and win despite that preening @#$%.
No other act in this world will turn me into a Laker fan faster than LeBron bolting for Miami. But hey, that’s where we are.
UPDATE: 11:20am Pacific: Bill Simmons has a lot more. Read it, I'm sold.
We had a 5.4 Earthquake here in SoCal, and I asked "How does the Earthquake affect LeBron's decision"
Speaking of ego run amok...
Listen, I’ve been on record (in the non-blogsphere world) saying over and over again that LeBron is staying in Cleveland. Even though it’s starting to look very much like I was wrong on this one, I’m going to stick with my prediction to the bitter end. Why? Because I cannot believe that this multi-millionaire Athlete, who can live anywhere in the world, and chooses to live in Akron, Ohio (because clearly he loves it), is going to give that up...and take less money in the process.
If Art Modell had to leave Cleveland for his own safety, do you really think that Bitter Cleveland fan is going to let LeBron off the hook? At least Modell was a New York native. Prince James doesn’t have that excuse. Cleveland fans have been through tough times, and are even tougher people, and they’ll hold onto a grudge until hell won’t have it no more.
But since I’m not from Cleveland, I just root for the team, I’d like to think I have a little perspective on LeBron James. I like the guy, but I don't love him like Ohio fan does. I think he is vastly overrated. I think he's a smart kid, but not a very bright one (and there is a difference). I think he truly believes that if he bolts to Miami, he’ll be forgiven by the people of Ohio.
Never in a million years.
Only a individual with his titanic ego would buy himself an hour of national (basic cable) television time, to tell the people of Ohio to @#$% off, and somehow expect them to be grateful for it. (I heard Stephen A. Ego---errr, I mean Stephen A. Smith on the Jim Rome show this morning saying that LeBron has nothing to apologize for. I think he’s living in the same bubble as LeBron and his crew).
There will be no gratitude, no thanks and no fond memories from the fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers. All they can do is pick themselves up, dust themselves off, draft well, let Byron Scott coach ‘em up, and win despite that preening @#$%.
No other act in this world will turn me into a Laker fan faster than LeBron bolting for Miami. But hey, that’s where we are.
UPDATE: 11:20am Pacific: Bill Simmons has a lot more. Read it, I'm sold.
I can't wait to watch for the same reasons I couldn't turn away from O.J.'s Bronco chase or the Artest melee: it's Car Wreck Television. If LeBron picks anyone other than the Cavaliers, it will be the cruelest television moment since David Chase ended "The Sopranos" by making everyone think they lost power. Cleveland fans will never forgive LeBron, nor should they. He knows better than anyone what kind of sports anguish they have suffered over the years. Losing LeBron on a contrived one-hour show would be worse than Byner's fumble, Jose Mesa, the Game 5 meltdown against Boston, The Drive, The Shot and everything else. At least those stomach-punch moments weren't preordained, unless you believe God hates Cleveland (entirely possible, by the way). This stomach-punch moment? Calculated. By a local kid they loved, defended and revered.
It would be unforgivable. Repeat: unforgivable. I don't have a dog in this race -- as a Celtics fan, I wanted to see him go anywhere but Chicago -- but LeBron doing this show after what happened in the 2010 playoffs actually turned me against him. No small feat. I was one of his biggest defenders. Not anymore.
Ego run amok...
Because only one job really matters to him, the West Virginia Governor is holding 2.1 Unemployed Americans hostage.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
"If you’re going to push the rules as far as they can go..."
A good dig from Jonathan Cohn:
The holds are in keeping with the rules of the Senate, as currently written; Republicans are technically within their rights to use them. But having poisoned the nomination process, are they really surprised--and can they really blame--the Democrats for responding in kind? “If you’re going to push the rules as far as they can go,” my colleague Jonathan Chait notes, “you can hardly complain when the other party does the same thing.”
Even Steven/Stephen... (VIDEO)
As a veteran Daily Show viewer, I can't tell you how much I missed this...
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Steve Carell | ||||
| ||||
Regarding This Double Dip Talk .....
The Bonddad tries to put some much needed perspective on this talk of a double-dip recession. (Thank you, Robert Reich!)
In short? Out of the woods yet? No. Doing better? Yes. Unemployment? Still too high. Housing? Too much supply. China? Could be a problem. E.U.? Another problem, but could be fixable. Washington? The Austerity police have their heads so far up their--
--I'll leave that to Krugman. He's got more Nobels than I do.
In short? Out of the woods yet? No. Doing better? Yes. Unemployment? Still too high. Housing? Too much supply. China? Could be a problem. E.U.? Another problem, but could be fixable. Washington? The Austerity police have their heads so far up their--
--I'll leave that to Krugman. He's got more Nobels than I do.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Soldiers are Soldiers everywhere... (VIDEO)
...and yes, those are members of the Israeli Defense Force, on duty, in the West Bank, gettin' down to (according to Andrew Sullivan and the Telegraph) Kesha's (American, and a terrible rapper) hit song Tik-Tok.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
The Fireside chat for July 3, 2010 (VIDEO)
As part of the explosion of Recovery Act projects this summer and as a move towards a clean energy future, the President announces nearly $2 billion in conditional commitments to key solar companies.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
The President's Speech on Immigration for July 1, 2010 (VIDEO)
The key graph:
In sum, the system is broken. And everybody knows it. Unfortunately, reform has been held hostage to political posturing and special-interest wrangling -– and to the pervasive sentiment in Washington that tackling such a thorny and emotional issue is inherently bad politics.
Just a few years ago, when I was a senator, we forged a bipartisan coalition in favor of comprehensive reform. Under the leadership of Senator Kennedy, who had been a longtime champion of immigration reform, and Senator John McCain, we worked across the aisle to help pass a bipartisan bill through the Senate. But that effort eventually came apart. And now, under the pressures of partisanship and election-year politics, many of the 11 Republican senators who voted for reform in the past have now backed away from their previous support.
Into this breach, states like Arizona have decided to take matters into their own hands. Given the levels of frustration across the country, this is understandable. But it is also ill conceived. And it’s not just that the law Arizona passed is divisive -– although it has fanned the flames of an already contentious debate. Laws like Arizona’s put huge pressures on local law enforcement to enforce rules that ultimately are unenforceable. It puts pressure on already hard-strapped state and local budgets. It makes it difficult for people here illegally to report crimes -– driving a wedge between communities and law enforcement, making our streets more dangerous and the jobs of our police officers more difficult.
And you don’t have to take my word for this. You can speak to the police chiefs and others from law enforcement here today who will tell you the same thing.
These laws also have the potential of violating the rights of innocent American citizens and legal residents, making them subject to possible stops or questioning because of what they look like or how they sound. And as other states and localities go their own ways, we face the prospect that different rules for immigration will apply in different parts of the country -– a patchwork of local immigration rules where we all know one clear national standard is needed.
The President's Town Hall in Racine, Wisconsin of June 30, 2010 (VIDEO)
This wasn’t a bad town hall. Not a must see by any means, outside of the hard elbow the President threw at on John Boehner, which he’s still smarting about given his public comments today.
The Town Hall portion was a bit of a let down, in that everyone was just so glad to see him that no one asked any tough questions. The one kid seemed to have one, but it bordered on incomprehensible. “I saw an interview where you said that you wanted the civilians to be just as strong and well-funded as our military. What are your plans to go about constructing such a thing?” Huh?!?
Sometimes I get the feeling that, the President is just waiting for a Republican plant to get into one of these Town Halls and throw him some heat. Every time someone asks him something close to tough, the crowd boos, and the President has to shush them down. “No. No. That’s okay,” he’ll say. As if to say he’s got this. I’m sure he’s ready with an answer, but the question never comes.
The Town Hall portion was a bit of a let down, in that everyone was just so glad to see him that no one asked any tough questions. The one kid seemed to have one, but it bordered on incomprehensible. “I saw an interview where you said that you wanted the civilians to be just as strong and well-funded as our military. What are your plans to go about constructing such a thing?” Huh?!?
Sometimes I get the feeling that, the President is just waiting for a Republican plant to get into one of these Town Halls and throw him some heat. Every time someone asks him something close to tough, the crowd boos, and the President has to shush them down. “No. No. That’s okay,” he’ll say. As if to say he’s got this. I’m sure he’s ready with an answer, but the question never comes.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Jon Stewart interviews the Axe (VIDEO)
I feel...mixed about this interview, but am leaning toward a solid B for both Jon and David Axelrod.
A lot of the questions asked came off at times plain-ass ig'nant. (Was Congress even mentioned in the interview? Apparently, the President can enact our Progressive/Liberal Agenda through Executive fiat. I did not know that.)
Still, Stewart got to ask a bunch of questions that I know he's wanted to ask for a long time, ones that had clearly been bugging him. He got in some good hard shots.
At the same time, Axelrod answered them...but answered them quickly in the middle of long lists of Administration Accomplishments. One telling exchange between Axe and Jon was over Bagram Air Base. Jon wanted to know why it had been excluded from habeas corpus proceedings, and Axe said: 1) that the Courts will decide (intimating that the President has and will follow the Courts decisions), and 2) intimating that when your ass is in charge of National Security, you're perspective does change a little.
Favorite question? What's worse? Dealing with intractable Conservatives or Pie-in-the-sky, Nothing's ever good enough Liberals? (My words, not Jon's).
And yes, Jon. There are people in between that.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3: (This is the part that wasn't aired, and contains the good stuff.)
A lot of the questions asked came off at times plain-ass ig'nant. (Was Congress even mentioned in the interview? Apparently, the President can enact our Progressive/Liberal Agenda through Executive fiat. I did not know that.)
Still, Stewart got to ask a bunch of questions that I know he's wanted to ask for a long time, ones that had clearly been bugging him. He got in some good hard shots.
At the same time, Axelrod answered them...but answered them quickly in the middle of long lists of Administration Accomplishments. One telling exchange between Axe and Jon was over Bagram Air Base. Jon wanted to know why it had been excluded from habeas corpus proceedings, and Axe said: 1) that the Courts will decide (intimating that the President has and will follow the Courts decisions), and 2) intimating that when your ass is in charge of National Security, you're perspective does change a little.
Favorite question? What's worse? Dealing with intractable Conservatives or Pie-in-the-sky, Nothing's ever good enough Liberals? (My words, not Jon's).
And yes, Jon. There are people in between that.
Part 1:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| David Axelrod Unedited Interview Pt. 1 | ||||
| ||||
Part 2:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| David Axelrod Unedited Interview Pt. 2 | ||||
| ||||
Part 3: (This is the part that wasn't aired, and contains the good stuff.)
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| David Axelrod Unedited Interview Pt. 3 | ||||
| ||||
Saturday, June 26, 2010
The Fireside chat for June 26, 2010 (VIDEO)
With Congress having finalized a strong Wall Street reform bill to avert another crisis and end bailouts, the President urges Congress to finish the job and send the bill to his desk.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
The President replaces Stanley McChrystal (VIDEO)
While, I've found some of the rhetoric overheated (really, Joe Klein...his whole Presidency?) I don't think the President had much of a choice. The article was at the very least a borderline Article 88 violation of the UCMJ, which says:
I picked that up from Thomas Ricks, who of course has had a couple of really good pieces on the McChrystal Matter.
"Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct."
I picked that up from Thomas Ricks, who of course has had a couple of really good pieces on the McChrystal Matter.
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