McChrystal would have voted for Obama not because Obama was a democrat but because Obama is a Foreign Policy Realist who campaigned heavily on realist foreign policies, while McCain is a foreign policy neocon who campaigned heavily on neocon foreign policies.
Likewise with Colin Powell. When he served as Reagan's NSA Powell was a politically unaffiliated realist. Powell was recruited by democrat realists and republican realists and he became a republican. He voted for Obama not because Obama was a democrat, but because Obama is a realist.
The real problems between Obama and McChrystal had nothing to do with Obama and McChrystal. Those problems arose because Powell convinced Obama to invoke the Powell Doctrine in Afghanistan, to force McChrystal's Afghanistan Plan conform to the Powell Doctrine, that if Obama let Afghanistan go forward without an exit strategy, Obama would end up like Bush, stuck in Iraq with no exit strategy.
Please stop using the word “Obama” and ‘realist’ in the same sentence. It’s beyond painful. Very bad comedy. Every time you do that, a puppy dies.
Obama wanted to placate leftists in his party and his own ego and so wanted a *SMALLER* Afghan plan. It is nowhere NEAR what Powell or the Army chiefs wanted.
“The real problems between Obama and McChrystal had nothing to do with Obama and McChrystal. “
Hilarious. Obama is a LEFTIST and our national security is not even his #1 issue. Stop pretending it is, and you end up with absurdities like the above.
reality check - Obama just isn’t INTO the MILITARY:
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.”
‘He voted for Obama not because Obama was a democrat, but because Obama is a realist’
Nope. Powell voted for Obama because he is (half)Black. I was appalled at the number of ‘Conservative’ Blacks who came out in support of Obama. I told my friend who is a Conservative Black woman, any Conservative Black who votes for Obama is putting their race above their ideology. Simple as that.