My support for Lt. General Stanley McChrystal is not partisan.  No one should turn to partisanship arguments regarding a war of such magnitude and seriousness.  There are only two important questions to ask: is McChrystal's assessment accurate?  Second, are his criticisms within the constraints and scope of his duty to the Constitution and to the Commander-In-Chief? 

I believe the answer to both questions is, "yes."

America needed more forthrightness from the Pentagon earlier in its War Against Terror- certainly more than our country received under the feckless President George Bush II. 

The success of the "surge" demonstrated that the Pentagon, as it had done during Westmoreland's catastrophic tenure in Vietnam, was only telling the White House what it wanted to hear.  Up until the devastating Congressional elections of 2006, which shook the Republican Party power base, and the onerous personal attacks on Gen. Petraeus, the Pentagon, Defense Secretary and President Bush flatly refused to acknowledge what everyone, especially the American people, already knew: that the war was not going well. 

Unlike General Douglas MacArthur in Korea, General Stanley McChrystal is edifying his country and Commander-in-Chief rather than defying the policy of the Executive.  Unlike MacArthur who was right about Korea, as McChrystal is about Afghanistan, McChrystal is not secretly soliciting alliances or defying the instructions of his President as to the conduct of the war.  This time McChrystal is doing his duty the right way.  He is protecting his country, as his oath to the Constitution requires.  McArthur undermined and defied Truman and thereby violated his oath to the Constitution, which requires a soldier to execute lawful orders.  McChrystal is just explaining, and no President has lawful power to deprive a General or any man, from expressing his opinion.  There is nothing that deprives a man in uniform from exercising his First Amendment Rights, unless he is divulging state secrets, or undermining the will to fight.  No such accusation can be seriously entertained in reading McChrystal's London Speech. 

McChrystal is a hero because he may lose his job for speaking truth to power.  MacArthur, although strategically right in my estimation, destroyed himself by challenging and acting in ways that were unconstitutional and destructive of orders of his President.  McChrystal has risked his career and his reputation to protect his country.  MacArthur simply undermined the policy and power of our then-elected Commander-in-Chief, Harry S. Truman. 

In this is all the difference...