Actually, the article is sort of an interesting riposte to Obuttocks, because it essentially challenges him - on very legimitate grounds - to get rid of people he simply no longer has the political capital - or cojones - to get rid of, which means that essentially the article is attempting to set up a situation where Obuttocks would necessarily fail. Four of the civilian "loose cannons" Rep. King identifies in the op-ed piece: * Vice President Biden must not be allowed to continue contradicting Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and undercut our military commanders in Afghanistan by saying that large numbers of troops will be pulled out of Afghanistan next summer.
* Karl Eikenberry, our ambassador to Afghanistan, must not be allowed to publicly criticize Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose support is essential to our success.
These are legitimate, reasonable grounds for doing to Biden, Gates, Clinton, and Eikenberry what was done to McChrystal (leaving aside the deeper principle that McChrystal should not have violated the long tradition the active military has of staying conspicuously silent on political matters, a tradition that should be preserved at all cost). However, can anyone imagine Obuttocks having the courage or the cojones to discipline any of these four, no matter how far off his rez they get? I don't think so.
No, whatever else Rep. King may or may not be, he's done a useful little job here by setting up a challenge that Obuttocks will necessarily fail.
