McChrystal the New MacArthur?

On the subject of General McChrystal’s summons to the carpet of the Oval Office:

The general and his staff surely must have known their unguarded, derogatory comments about senior members of the administration made to a free-lancer writing for Rolling Stone would create a firestorm. The question, then, is why did they do it?

The only answer I could come up with was that McChrystal is bucking for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, in much the same way as Douglas MacArthur did (unsuccessfully) when he took on Harry Truman. Getting fired by Obama would be seen by Republican war-hawks as a Red Badge of Courage at a time when Obama will probably decide to withdraw from the Middle East. A distinguished military commander would be the logical political antithesis to an incumbent tarred by Republicans as ‘an appeaser’ or worse for having ‘lost the war’ in Afghanistan.

The timing is right. If Obama fires him, McChrystal would have two years to travel around the country speechifying and building a constituency among Republican donors.

He would also steal the march on his boss, Gen. Petraeus, whose name is being bandied about as a presidential contender .