The Obama-McChrystal Brouhaha...

...delights us here in Chelm, inasmuch as it proves that both the U.S. administration and the top echelons of the U.S. military can trace their roots to our little town.

Still, it strikes the more historically minded of us as a farcical replay of the Harry Truman-Douglas MacArthur showdown, which resulted in the firing of the latter in April 1951, which in turn led to a national temper tantrum and fears of a military takeover among the more excitable members of the American intelligentsia of the day. This time, no such great principle is at stake, unless you consider the right of one of General McChrystal’s aides to call Obama's national security adviser, James L. Jones, a "clown" to be a matter worth going to the stake for. If the general nevertheless considers running his own mouth to be more important than running the war, the president should grant him his desires, and McChrystal can join the panoply of Fox ranters.