From the quoted article by Esther Zuckerman...
The film’s director, Amir Bar-Lev, said in an interview that he respects the Dems’ positionbut that “it’s an issue of standards of leadership — the absolute arrogance that Gen.McChrystal showed in his lies before, not only after Tillman death, but as recent at his confirmation hearing for Obama. That kind of arrogance is something that I would challenge anybody to defend. Gen.McChrystal or anybody.”

And this from article below......on his appointment as a faculty member at Yale. His arrogance has no limits. He MUST believe, he is a WAR HERO and not a war criminal! I guess, for some people, their egos blind them to reality.

"But McChrystal isn’t going to overcome his public fall-from-grace by structuring his seminar as an ode to his awesomeness. It only highlights the lack of judgment that took him from wartime command to pick-up work as a guest lecturer.
here

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/09/professor-mcchrystals-lectures-navigating-politics-media-irony/

Poor Ben Stango. I'm sure he has many wonderful qualities and is fantastic at standardized tests. But when you're 20 and calibrating your actions for how they'll play on Fox in 2029 when you're nominated to be Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, you've already far down the wrong path in life. (Of course, the joke will be on me in 2030 when Assistant Secretary Stango calls in the drone strike on the wedding I'm attending outside Jakarta.)

Mr Schwarz, as Prof Bacevich states in "The Unmaking of a Company Man", An Education Begun in the Shadow of the Brandenburg Gate......
one hopes, Mr Stango's re-education will not have to wait for 20 yrs to challenge the General's arrogance and not defend it but attack it, for your sake and ours!

I knew Stan would do OK. I won't be attending Yale this fall(yet again) so I won't be PAYING for Stan's services anymore(except retirement + bennies) which eases my mind. ('cause Stan is, no doubt, an indiscriminate killing machine)

Assistant Secretary of State, pshaw! With this kind of commitment, young Ben is likely to find himself in the Senate in 20 years, Blue Doggin' his way to an extra 10 million in campaign contributions

Remember when I was the retiring editor at the Yale Daily News in 1950 about how college presidents shouldn't let atheists teach in their schools, and "since it is they who establish policy, their associates will cooperate with their program if they conscientiously do so; and if they cannot, Godspeed on their way to an institution that is more liberal"?

I won.

That last sentence sent me roaring. Just thought I'd let you know :)

"Geld" is one of those low-frequency words that less facile readers may have difficulty with. Had I been writing this piece, in order to increase intelligibility access and eschew obfuscation I might have selected fix - it is a literal synonym in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary sense 6c - and some of the other definitions also resonate well.

Although Mr. Stango says "his organization supports the film and its message", their behavior reminds me of one of Lawrence Berra's pearls of wisdom:

You can observe a lot just by watching.

How did assasin-in-chief McCrystal become a war hero? By the way, why does someone who signs up for the military become a "hero", while other occupations are neglected? Is a cancer researcher or worker for ACORN a "hero"?

Stango probably reflects the views of a believer in our Pravda-like press. If he were in the old U.S.S.R., Stango could look forward to a great career as an apparachnik, like many other Americans these days.

Hey, used to be (and apparently still is) that if you wanted to be in the king's court, but weren't a relative, you had to be a eunuch. I don't see that much has changed.

In fairness to Stango, he is just regurgitating what they learned in Professor Negropante's class.

mistah charley ph.d

Lawrence Berra? Way to keep us on our toes.

Bill Murray

I suppose people just can't believe that somebody with "Assistant" in his title can be powerful, but it really is so. In contrast, Senators mostly just run around posing for cameras and begging for money or selling their votes all the time. As a result, most of them, even when they have high native intelligence, are functionally morons and not good for much of anything but obstructing progressive legislation and otherwise doing the bidding of their corporate funders.

Rupa Shah

Thanks for mentioning Bacevich's recent article--I had missed it. Yes, Ben Stango will be lucky if he eventually learns, as Bacevich did, that "worldly ambition inhibits true learning." I'm curious whether Bacevich's new book Washington Rules, America's Path to Permanent War, will be even darker and harder hitting than The Limits of Power.

Here is an EXCELLENT interview with Prof Bacevich.....A MUST READ!

The interview starts with the first question....
"McNally: Your book, Washington Rules, opens with a moment that you offer as a turning point: could you share that experience?"

"America's Empire and Endless Wars Are Destroying the World, and Ruining Our Great Country
here

http://www.alternet.org/world/148094/america%2527s_empire_and_endless_wars_are_destroying_the_world%252C_and_ruining_our_great_country/

thanks again Rupa, another very interesting interview. I greatly admire Bacevich's open mind and willingness to say the Emperor has no clothes (having sold them for guns to cover himself with blood).

Am in the middle of Washington Rules and my mouth keeps dropping open. Bacevich tells it true, but oh, how I wish I didn't have to believe that.

Interesting to see McChrystal described as a "war hero." He has no combat experience and no awards for bravery.

Having seen the movie, I can you it was much weaker than it should have been. I think the Yalies are afraid their girlfriends might see what a real man looks like.

Stango probably reflects the views of a believer in our Pravda-like press. If he were in the old U.S.S.R., Stango could look forward to a great career as an apparatchik, like many other Americans these days.

Yes, but with one significant difference. As a Soviet apparachik, Stango would probably (wink-wink) acknowledge it was all hogwash after a couple of vodkas. The real Stango believes his own propaganda.