Is Obama a big pansy?

His wishy-washy stance on Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell would make you think he’s afraid of being called one. Now we get to see one way or the other: his top general in Afghanistan just committed an unpardonable act of insubordination and has been called onto the carpet.

Stanley McChrystal always sounded like a dubious sort, and the bureaucratic infighting among the foreign policy establishment over the ongoing debacle in Afghanistan has been as intense as a bombing campaign over Tora Bora. But Obama really doesn’t have a lot of options after McChrystal’s public trashing of his civilian boss in Rolling Stone—anything less than getting handed his ass and his marching papers will mean Obama is a figurehead who is not in command.

The worst outcome of this episode would be a big show of a stern private lecture followed by a public spanking on the White House lawn with McChrystal then allowed to go back to work. That would make Obama a laughingstock and confirm the creeping suspicion, based on his fanatical desire to make nice with everybody no matter how much they trash him, that he’s desperate for approval and has no balls.

A Chilean political scientist once told me, ‘Soldiers are like maricones (fags): all over the world, they recognize each other’. If Obama can’t insist on the respect of his own generals, there’s no reason the rest of the world will either. This is a bigger test than any congressional dogfight or spat with the Republicans—this is about whether we have an adult in charge of our future.