The generals have been having a wild time of it lately.  It was just a little over a week ago that Gen. David Petraeus, the head of Central Command physically passed outy right there for the world to see as he testified before a congressional committee.  Now it’s Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s turn to collapse…or least for his career to.  Petraeus apparently had not had enough liquids.  McChrystal was done in because he and his aides spouted off in front of a reporter.

We all know the story by now.  For reasons beyond comprehension, McChrystal and his fellow high ranking smart alecks let the Rolling Stone writer listen in as they trashed just about everyone in the civilian chain of Afghanistan command…most memorably the Vice President, who will forevermore be known as Mr. “Bite Me”.In the end,it was McChrystal who got bitten…chewed up and spit out.  He’s relieved of his command, replaced by none other than Gen. Petraeus, who could have been excused if he had fainted again, from shock.  There he was, comfortably ensconced at CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa and now he’s on his way back to Kabul.

Memo to Television executives and speech agencies:  Stanley McChrystal is suddenly available for work as a military affairs commentator, with a Special Ops, uh,  specialty.  He is probably not the guy to give the most expert analysis of politics and definitely not press relations, but the fallen high and mighty seem to hold a special TV news fascination.  Just ask Eliot Spitzer. But I digress…

Back at the Situation Room, once they shooed out Wolf Blitzer, the President convened a strategy session.  It probably ought to be called a “Cut the Crap” meeting.  He should have no problem looking for someone’s “ass to kick”, since just about everyone involved seems to be running in different directions.  If they dumped on the enemy as much as they have each other, the Taliban would be long gone from the region and so would the United States.  Perhaps one of the top ranking diplomats should also go…replaced by say, Rahm Emanuel.

Wouldn’t it be fun to watch Emanuel dealing with Afghanistan’s uber warlord Hamid Karzai?  Come to think of it, what probably did in Gen McChrystal was the one big endorsement he got from President Karzai.  Can you hear it now?  When  Karzai offered his strong words of public support,  McChrystal probably squealed “Noooooooo….!!

Now that he’s gone, Karzai is probably doing a little moaning himself. He’ll have to deal much more with Richard Holbrooke, the US Special Representative, or super envoy for the region.  Karzai is widely regarded in the US as a loose cannon and widely unloved in Washington.  Holbrooke, is not all that adored either.  There are many who consider him capable but annoying as hell.  Karzai feels the same way, at least about the annoying part.  So maybe as he deals with the administration, that’s a good starting point of agreement.

As for Petraeus, he’s a regular old charmer, and somebody who chooses his words verrrrryyyy carefully.  So don’t look for any articles about his incendiary remarks.  What would be nice, of course, would be reports of progress with Afghanistan. Perhaps the President needs to continue to send out the clowns.  This is not a comedy.  It’s a tragedy.

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• McChrystal to Face Obama: ‘I’ve Compromised the Mission’ (abcnews.go.com)

Among the first things we need to determine is whether Vice President “Bite Me” considers this a “Big F______ing deal”.  “Bite Me” is the name an aide to Afghanistan military commander General Stanley McChrystal gave to Mr. Biden if we are to believe a new piece in Rolling Stone by freelance reporter Michael Hastings,.  Hastings was apparently given close access to McChrystal and his crew and it is certainly a big F____ing deal for them.

The piece, set for release Friday, calls McChrystal “The Runaway General”.  Well, he’s crawling away from Afghanistan, back to DC. He has been jerked back after accomplishing what many thought was impossible.  Apparently the article with all its contemptuous quotes about damn near the entire national security team has made the President…dare I say it…ANGRY!!  He’s so mad that his press guy won’t even rule out the possibility that he’ll be fired.

It won’t be hard to spot Gen. McChrystal on the way to his White House grovel.  He’ll be the guy in the perfectly pressed uniform with the red face above all those stars on his shoulder.  As for firing him , the President will have a balancing act to perform here.

On the one hand, this won’t be the first time that McChrystal has been borderline insubordinate with him.  The last time, we can recall, Obama yanked him from London to Copenhagen so he could be pictured getting the “Let’s Remember Who’s Commander-in-Chief” lecture.  Apparently, it didn’t take.  Add to that, the fact that things are not going all that well in Afghanistan and some in this administration might regard this less as a crisis than an opportunity to toss the guy overboard

On the other side of this double-edged sword, cutting him loose would mean getting rid of the guy who developed the master plan for Afghanistan the President has chosen to follow just as it goes into high gear.  Besides, McChrystal seems to be about the only person in the US government these days who gets along well with the country’s President Hamid Karzai, and doesn’t consider him a dangerous cuckoo-bird.

As important as all that, there is also the Douglas MacArthur-Harry Truman lesson. MacArthur was another big Mac, with an ego to match, who as UN Commander in Korea, in 1951, unleashed his own criticisms of the President and his policies.  Truman didn’t wait long.  Very quickly Gen. Mac Arthur became the FORMER UN Commander and just as quickly, the wildly popular general (he had been a World War 2 hero) became a martyr. The firestorm brought all the Truman-haters out of the woodwork and did serious damage to the administration.

The Obama-haters are already out of the woodwork.  He doesn’t need to bring McChrystal to the tea party. So maybe the bigger deal for Obama is to deliver the message that his peeps can’t roll over him, any more than the BP peeps could. That’s why he dragged them to the Oval Office last week to deliver a 20 billion dollar message to them and remind them of their obligations to the “small people” who populate the Gulf of Mexico region.

The “small people” are a big deal, and this is too.  It’s hard to see how McChrystal can stay, since the article guarantees he’d be perceived as working for people he obviously doesn’t respect.  So don’t be surprised if he is relieved of his command and perhaps put ion charge of the crews cleaning up tab balls on Louisiana beaches.

One thing for certain:  The White House will be Action Central.  Don’t bet on the President inviting in CSPAN for these meetings, but every glimpse we get will be “Must see TV, from the moment McChrystal slinks in.  This, as Vice President “Bite Me” would say, truly is a big…oh never mind, you get the picture.

Like many reporters I can read upside down. It’s a skill that’s useful when you want to sneak a peek at stuff an unwary official or politician leaves naked on his desk or nude notes on his lap.

Back in my TV puberty in Cleveland, a presidential candidate came to town and was sitting down with the usual rotation of local yokel anchor types, like me, who could be expected to ask puffball questions and get canned non-answers.

The aforementioned candidate’s staff (his identity doesn’t matter) had prepared his crib sheet and he carelessly left it sitting there for me to, uh, crib.. I could see he was going to wow me (the sheet included my name) and the audience with specific figures about the area’s unemployment rate, and industries,so no matter what my inquiry he’d work them into his answer.

I hated that.  So I began by saying “Senator _______, the unemployment rate here is (whatever his sheet said it was) and the (ditto) industry here has been particularly hard hit….” Then I continued with my question.  The poor guy had nothing to say.  The response was so generic, he didn’t even bother to use my name.

Now in today’s sophisticated world of message manipulation, the politicians’ media adviser brains have made damned sure their clients hide anything they don’t want the upside-down-reading-scumbag-
reporter to see. (Is “scumbag-reporter” a redundancy?).

In fact the cleverest of the clever in this battle of deceit will sometimes place papers on their client’s desk they DO want us to see…misleading us into believing we’re pulling a fast one when we’re not the puller but the pullEE.

A variation on that would be the talking point.  Those are exactly what they sound like:  Words created by party leaders and their handlers that are to be mindlessly repeated to make sure that A) their puppets  stay on message and B) they look like they know what they’re talking about.

Which brings me to Dylan Ratigan, the puppet disrupter of MSNBC, and his quote “Racists and talking points piss me off”.

( Full disclosure: I never met the guy, never been on his show, although I do show up on MS.  Full enough?).

Ratigan was explaining the browbeating he gave Democratic Congresswoman Debbie            Wasserman-Schultz

(Wasserman-Schultz and I have met  but when we did she was looking over my shoulder as she said “Nice to see you”).

Whether Ratigan mistreated Wasserman-Schultz or not, his view of talking points is dead on. Just like those of that long ago presidential candidate (he lost by the way), they need to be penetrated and disrupted.

They are a mirage, creating an impression there’s a “there-there”, when it’s just an illusion.  They are another version of the consultant’s maxim “Answer the question you want to answer, not the one you were asked”. It’s clever but frankly dishonest, it obscures truth and stifles valid debate.

Frankly, those of us in TV have helped create this monster.  Another axiom is that “Viewers don’t remember the debate or discussion, it’s the sound bite they recall”. So if the well programmed advocate sticks to one bite and repeats it till the clock runs out, he or she can escape unscathed and wait till the next show calls.

The problem with all this is that instead of ideas, we get self-serving, vacuous phrase-mongering.  Is it any wonder there is no longer such a thing as bipartisan cooperation or even engagement?.  In order for that to
happen the various sides need to talk to one another.

What we get instead is people talking to themselves and their amen choruses.  It helps explain why we never get anything down. There is no back and forth, no openness.

That contributes to the feeling that the bottom is falling out of our system. It’s inevitable when the whole concept of exchanging ideas is so turned upside down. And Dylan, not that you need them but please feel free to use these thoughts as talking points.

The first order of business will be deciding what to call that 20 billion dollar BP compensation fund. How about “A Start”.  As in, 20 billion doesn’t begin to cover the liability for the careless disregard for anything but profit that caused such devastating losses in the Gulf of Mexico region including the loss of life. It’ll take more than any financial penalty to achieve a just result.

  The contemptuous disregard for minimal safety procedures was brought on by pressure from the very top of the company. It was the never-ending demand to minimize expenses and maximize profits which borders on criminal negligence.  In fact, it crosses the line and serious consideration has to be given to the prosecution of those responsible, from top to bottom.

While we’re at it,BP, lose the ads.   We don’t need those absurd attempts to depict recovery efforts as some benign corporate act. That’s not image making, that’s image faking.

  For that matter, we would probably be better off without any from the energy industry.  Those commercials we see that present big oil as  protecting our interests are nothing more than propaganda disguising campaigns that try and rachet up opposition to new taxes on the industry and the obscene income its gets because of its stranglehold on all of us.  It is, after all, a cartel that feeds our addiction to oil and gasoline,

The industry can save a lot of money so why does’t it simply control the law the old fashioned way…by bribing politicians with campaign contributions and threatening them if they don’t, uh, rig things.

Let’s face it:  Their conduct is so egregious they’ve even made President Obama mad. So, now BP executives had to do a “perp walk where ameras couldshow them trudging into the White House to ratify their new fund. 

It’s paid for, by  cutting out dividends to stockholders.  Of course it is.  So many of them are small time investors, who count on the dividends for much of their income.  A lot of pensioners are now going to do without,just like all those people in the Gulf…the ones that the company chairman called the “small people”  Now we know why he’s so reclusive.

If you believe that he and other top management are going to suffer any loss of compensation, I have some land to sell you a mile below the water. First though, I should refer you to the bankers and Wall Street titans, who are still rolling in obscene salaries, stock options and bonuses.

What’s important now is to watch BP very closely and be prepared for backsliding on the promises to “make things right”.  That’s an act, a BP performance. Its leaders know full well that once they finally cap the gusher, assuming they finally do, the gush of bad publicity will also be plugged and our attention will shift to the next outrage.

That’s when they can start their reneging on promises and using legal obstructions to keep things wrong. We cannot cut them any slack. If we do, they will slack off.

When it comes to that compensation account, we can expect fund and games.  We’ll be damned lucky if the money reaches the innocents who deserve it before their hopes for the future are beyond recovery, beyond any chance to “make things right”

If you ever wwonder about these rantum acts of unkindness toward so many coporations it’s because they have demonstrated a callous disregard for those with whom they share an economy, sometimes a murderous disregard.

All I can say is thank heaven for my DVR.  Otherwise I would have missed the first couple of innings of the Washington Nationals game. And for what?  For President Obama throwing puffballs in his first play from the Oval office.

There he was.  The President of the United States, in the Oval Office, telling us he was mad a heck.  He couldn’t even work up a “mad as hell”, as he assured us he simply will “refuse” to let this  destructive oil spill destroy the Gulf way of life.

And what was with his rambling about how they “bless the fleet” down there?  Maybe it had something to do with his meeting with the BP executives.  Maybe its the ceremonial blessing of their fleet of corporate jets, the ones that whisk them to and from their mansions in the Hamptons (You want to stop the oil gusher? Just let the first tar balls reach the Hampton’s beaches.  Then we’ll have results!)

Quick: What’s the difference between this disaster and Hurricane Katrina? Katrina was caused by an act of God.  The BP destruction was caused by oil company executives who think they’re Gods.  That’s who the President has invited over to the White House. Presumably they won’t be sitting down for a beer.

So now we’ll have a victims fund, paid for out of BP’s petty cash.  It will be independently administered…meaning that the independent administrators will immediately set up a bureaucracy that will see to it compensation is delayed for individuals, families and their businesses until way after they’ve gone under.

Meanwhile, the most important part of the President’s Oval Office address, the part about how we must change our evil oil-guzzling ways, fell on deaf ears.  Ours.

In fairness, he has appointed a new head of the Minerals Management Service as part of his “Kick Ass” campaign.

Michael Bromwich is a former Justice Department official who is known for his ability to do just that.  And there are certainly of opportunities for him at MMS. Maybe his first act would be to put a moratorium on the agency’s oil-company sponsored sex parties.  Just thinking.  And remember: I’m not making that up.

I should mention that the Nats lost last night.  The people of the Gulf are losing too.  We all are.