Jonathan Alter Loses Imus, Few Are Surprised

After offering the I-Man some fashion advice, Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, author of the New York Times Bestseller The Promise, explained why General Stanley McChrystal was fired so quickly from the top job in Afghanistan after he made disparaging remarks about the President and others to Rolling Stone Magazine.

“This was not McChrystal’s first trip to the woodshed,” Alter said, and expounded on a rather long-winded story about McChrystal’s inappropriateness, which began last October in London when he publicly said he could not support Vice President Biden’s plan for Afghanistan to reduce troop levels and increase the use of predator drones.

“Before the policy had been determined, the commander in the field was saying that if the President sided with the Vice President, he could not support the policy, which is insubordination,” said Alter. “And they were furious about it in the White House.”

In Copenhagen at the time, Obama summoned McChrystal to Air Force One, where the two sort of mended fences. “Even though Biden wanted some heads to roll, he was not going to fire McChrystal at that time,” Alter said of Obama, who later dressed down Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, telling him he was “exceedingly unhappy” about being boxed in by the Pentagon.

At which point Imus told Alter, “You’re starting to lose me.”

Alter’s point had been to show that McChrystal’s firing wasn’t an abrupt decision. As for someone else who should probably be fired, RNC Chairman Michael Steele, Alter said that him calling Afghanistan a “war of Obama’s choosing” shows the tension within the Republican Party about what to do on Afghanistan.

“Obama is getting out of there, out of Afghanistan, if not in July of 2011, within a few months after that,” Alter predicted. “By 2012 there will be a substantial withdrawal, and we’ll see how sharp the Republican blowback is, whether they’ll try to make him look weak, and like a hippie for withdrawing.”

Steele’s comments would not be helpful in this effort, added Alter, whose certainty on the draw down was magnified by a scintillating encounter he had with Biden in the White House while researching The Promise.

“He said to me, ‘You’re going to see a whole lot of people coming out in July 2011. Bet on it,’” Alter recalled. On his way out the door to meet the President for lunch, Biden had come back in the room, put his finger in Alter’s chest, and repeated, “Bet. On. It.”

Goosebumps!

-Julie Kanfer