the meeting

"...and so, General, when I see someone with the responsibilities that you have, sitting down with Rolling Stone and talking about the administration in a way that is not just harmful to the essential balance of civilian-military relations, but also undercuts..." "Hey. Hey. Hands off the suit." "What?" "I said keep your hands off of my uniform. You're invading my personal space." "Your personal space is about the last thing you need to be worrying about right now, General." "I don't care if you are the president of the United States, although I seriously doubt you rightfully are, considering your caginess about your birth certificate. Like I told World Net Daily, their take on that is spot on. But even if you are legit, you still don't have the right to push me." "I didn't push you." "Oh really, that's what you'd like me to believe? You initiated contact with my body which is the initial portion of a shove, and just because I stopped you before you were able to complete the action by executing the thrust, you would brazenly lie by saying that you were not in the process of committing a push?" "I did not push you." "Oh. Oh. Maybe you were just copping a little feel, is that it? You like man tit, is that the story?" "You're digging your own grave here, McChrystal." "I guess that maybe I should dig your grave instead, that's what I'm thinking. Boy, this is just like what I was telling the New York Times. Put the big jerk under a little bit of pressure and his inner bully comes roaring out." "It's apparent that you are not temperamentally capable of successfully carrying out your mission." "Oh yeah? Maybe you're not temperamentally capable of being the friggin president. How do you like them apples?" "You know, as long as you're still wearing that uniform, it's not too late to have you court martialed." "Here come Obama the Bully again. It's like I told High Times this morning, when you flip over a rock and see the ugly things that come crawling out, it makes you reluctant to ever flip over a rock again." "General, your behavior is totally inappropriate, and I have no choice but to relieve you of your command." "You want to fight, just you and me? I can take you in a heartbeat. Of course, I suppose you would just have me arrested rather than accept your beating like a man." "That's enough, General. You're relieved. End of story." "You know, nobody likes you, Obama. Everybody I know voted for John McCain. Everybody. Like I told Hamid Karzai, we knew that it would be a disaster if you were elected. And sure enough, here we are in the midst of a..." "Leave now before I have the Secret Service escort you out." "Okay, okay, Mister Tough Stuff. Maybe you won this round, but just wait till you hear what I have to say on the Sean Hannity show tonight."

from the archives: The man from another place

There will never be a better time to rerun this one...

"I've got good news. That gum you like is going to come back in style." "Oh, really? The Nicorette Spearmint? That's excellent news, General, the best I've heard all month. Which I guess, all in all, is a pretty sad commentary on my month." ".retteb eb lliw htnom txen ebyaM .riS ,taht raeh ot etah I" "Don't do that, General. It kind of freaks me out when you start talking backwards..." "Sorry, Mr. President. It's a old counterinsurgency tactic we've been using in Afghanistan. Freaks out the Taliban as well. But, uh, you wouldn't know anything about that would you?" "No." "Good." "But I'm thinking that it's probably not a very effective tactic. Not too many of those guys know English in the first place, do they?" "No Sir, they certainly don't. But our thinking is that they know what English sounds like, so when they hear it spoken backwards it has a certain disorienting effect to them." "Uh huh." "Let me give you an example. Do you speak Spanish?" "Enough to get by. But back to the topic at hand..." "How about Italian? No? Good. .olovat lus e orbil lI Now what I just said was 'the book is on the table' in Italian, but I said it backwards. Sounded pretty weird, didn't it?" "Yes it did, General. Now if we can just get back to our discussion on the exit strategy. I was talking to Secretary of State Clinton..." "She's my cousin... but doesn't she look almost like Laura Palmer?" "Who's Laura Palmer?" "I don't know." "Well anyway, as far as I know Hillary is not your cousin. But she is your Secretary of State. And what she..." "She's filled with secrets." "She's filled with state secrets. But it should be no secret that..." "Where we're from, the birds sing a pretty song and there's always music in the air." "I'm sure there is. Now General, what I tell the American people about the exit strategy has got to be definitive or I risk losing support for the mission on the Democratic side of Congress. And as you know, any Republican support I get is going to be used for their own partisan advantage. So it's important that...: "Would you like some coffee? Some of your friends are here." "Huh? Oh, that's just my press secretary. He's waiting for a statement on an unrelated matter. General McChrystal, this is Robert Gibbs." "Wow, Bob, Wow. Fire walk with me." "Uh... uh... Wow, General, Wow. Anytime, I guess, just give me a call..." "Give us a couple more minutes, Bob... Okay, General, time for some straight talk..." "Let's rock!" "Let's not. Now listen, General, I know you've been working hard and I know you've been under a lot of stress, so why don't you head home to get some sleep, and we'll try to talk again tomorrow. But the next time I see you..." "When you see me again, it won't be me." ".lareneG, night dooG" "Nice try, but you've got a lot to learn about talking backwards, Mr. President."

Karzai increasingly feisty

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai lashed out again at the West this weekend, accusing the United States of interfering in Afghan affairs. Karzai's remarks came just two days after his apology to Hillary Clinton for accusing the US of rigging the Afghan election (which he miraculously won anyway). "Just what makes Captain Obvious think the we're interfering in his country's affairs," said the exasperated Secretary of State. "Is it the 100,000 troops we have fighting there, or the billions of dollars worth of aid that he keeps misdirecting? Honestly, sometimes I don't even know why we bother. Wait, I remember why. Because if we weren't fighting in that hellhole, the Republicans would say we're soft on terror." Karzai, who has been getting increasingly cozy with Iran, has begun visiting tribal elders and telling them they have veto power over any further military operations, implying that the insurgency may soon be legitimized as a national resistance. "Well that's opening up a whole new can of worms, isn't it?" said General Stanley McChrystal, lead Commander in Afghanistan. "Of course, a can of worms is considered a delicacy in this godforsaken wasteland, but the point is, I surely don't savor the idea of being considered an occupier rather than a liberator. I suppose it would be unsoldierly of me to say this whole thing is starting to look like a lost cause, wouldn't it? Yeah, that's what I thought, so I won't say it." Karzai appeared to have reached the boiling point on Saturday when he met with Parliament to berate them for refusing to give him the power to appoint all the members of the Electoral Complaints Commission. "If you and the international community pressure me more," he told them, "I swear that I am going to join the Taliban." "Whoops-a-daisy," said Clinton, upon hearing these remarks. "I think I see a possible solution to our Karzai problem."

the man from another place

"I've got good news. That gum you like is going to come back in style." "Oh, really? The Nicorette Spearmint? That's excellent news, General, the best I've heard all month. Which I guess, all in all, is a pretty sad commentary on my month." ".retteb eb lliw htnom txen ebyaM .riS ,taht raeh ot etah I" "Don't do that, General. It kind of freaks me out when you start talking backwards..." "Sorry, Mr. President. It's a old counterinsurgency tactic we've been using in Afghanistan. Freaks out the Taliban as well. But, uh, you wouldn't know anything about that would you?" "No." "Good." "But I'm thinking that it's probably not a very effective tactic. Not too many of those guys know English in the first place, do they?" "No Sir, they certainly don't. But our thinking is that they know what English sounds like, so when they hear it spoken backwards it has a certain disorienting effect to them." "Uh huh." "Let me give you an example. Do you speak Spanish?" "Enough to get by. But back to the topic at hand..." "How about Italian? No? Good. .olovat lus e orbil lI Now what I just said was 'the book is on the table' in Italian, but I said it backwards. Sounded pretty weird, didn't it?" "Yes it did, General. Now if we can just get back to our discussion on the exit strategy. I was talking to Secretary of State Clinton..." "She's my cousin... but doesn't she look almost like Laura Palmer?" "Who's Laura Palmer?" "I don't know."   "Well anyway, as far as I know Hillary is not your cousin. But she is your Secretary of State. And what she..."   "She's filled with secrets."   "She's filled with state secrets. But it should be no secret that..."   "Where we're from, the birds sing a pretty song and there's always music in the air."   "I'm sure there is. Now General, what I tell the American people about the exit strategy has got to be definitive or I risk losing support for the mission on the Democratic side of Congress. And as you know, any Republican support I get is going to be used for their own partisan advantage. So it's important that...:"   "Would you like some coffee? Some of your friends are here."   "Huh? Oh, that's just my press secretary. He's waiting for a statement on an unrelated matter. General McChrystal, this is Robert Gibbs."   "Wow, Bob, Wow. Fire walk with me."   "Uh... uh... Wow, General, Wow. Anytime, I guess, just give me a call..."   "Give us a couple more minutes, Bob... Okay, General, time for some straight talk..."   "Let's rock!"   "Let's not. Now listen, General, I know you've been working hard and I know you've been under a lot of stress, so why don't you head home to get some sleep, and we'll try to talk again tomorrow. But the next time I see you..."   "When you see me again, it won't be me."   ".lareneG, night dooG"   "Nice try, but you've got a lot to learn about talking backwards, Mr. President."

decision point

After months of deliberating, appraising, analyzing, racking his brain, brooding over, pondering, considering, mulling and ruminating over Afghanistan, the president has finally laid down his thinking cap and made up his mind to do whatever the heck it is that General McChrystal wants to do. "After completing a rigorous final meeting, President Obama has the information he wants and needs to make his decision and he will announce that decision within days," said Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. "I think everybody will be pleasantly surprised by what he has to say. Okay, not so much pleasantly surprised as relieved to have the damn thing out on the table." "Speaking of damn, this is one of those decisions where you're damned if you do and damned if you don't," Gibbs continued. "I'm not at liberty to go into specifics of the plan, but I can inform you that the president has decided to go ahead and be damned."