How Obama decided to fire McChrystal

Obama and McChrystal chat at the White House in 2009.

(Image credit: Getty)

last updated 8 January 2015

Gen. Stanley McChrystal didn't seem to understand at first how career-limiting his loose-lipped interview with Rolling Stone was, says Mike Allen in Politico, but the White House decided early on that his disrespect of his civilian bosses was a fireable offense. "McChrystal already had two strikes" going into the mess, and once it was decided that replacing him wouldn't harm the mission in Afghanistan, he had one narrow window to convince President Obama he should stay on. He didn't. Here's an excerpt:

"Vice President Joe Biden was the first top administration official to know about the Rolling Stone article. He was flying back from Chicago after a campaign event when Gen. Stanley McChrystal called him on Air Force 2 around 5:30 p.m. to apologize for comments in the article. The vice president had no idea what he was talking about, so the call was brief, and Biden asked his aides to get a copy of the story....