Explosive Rolling Stone Profile Puts General Stanley McChrystal's Career In Jeopardy And More Coverage From The Gulf

Hi everyone. Well, I knew it would happen eventually--a story would come along and knock the BP oil disaster out of the first block of the broadcast. And did it ever. Unless you've been under a rock or perhaps just now come out of a coma, you already know that Michael Hastings wrote a profile of General Stanley McChrystal for Rolling Stone. It is what they call a "must read," and has the political/media class in a tizzy over incendiary comments the general made about everyone from a French minister to Joe Biden. Underneath the name-calling are very real and important questions about our involvement in Afghanistan and how we proceed forward. Hopefully that conversation will come soon. The current news-cycle, however, predictably, is all about the fate of McChrystal. It's been reported that he has offered his resignation. It's Obama's move. And that, kids, is where we find ourselves. The bullet points and their awesomeness await:

• I was pretty excited when I found out that Michael Hastings was the author of the article. I'm a big fan (and promoter) of his work. He's a no bullshit kind of journalist--just the way I like them. You can read more of his work at True Slant if you go to the "The Hastings Report" link on your right (see, I'm not lying about promoting!). I'm actually Twitter friends with Michael, which I guess is neither here nor there, but I bring it up because how that came to be has a 360 connection. No, seriously. Around the time of one of Jack Gray's initial award show live-blogs, I was reading Michael's excellent book "I Lost My Love in Baghdad." Jack just happened to mention his friend, Michael Hastings, and I was like, "wait, that name is familiar...oh hey!" Fast forward to me confirming with Jack it was the same guy (this was back when Jack tweeted a lot more) and passing along how much I liked the book. Fast forward to Jack getting Michael on Twitter (I'm not saying because of me, people), and...wah la! Twitter friends. And I've been following his work ever since. (I'm amused by the fact that at the time of that post Jack "only" had 164,836 followers--my how time flies and the Twitter profile grows!) Anyway! Maybe you all don't care about my semi-narcissistic little social networking story here, but hey, my blog. In any regards, you should follow Michael and you should definitely read his Rolling Stone piece.

• Anderson Cooper's interview with Michael via Kandahar is below. Of note is Michael talking about how he struggled to determine if McChrystal and others were using him to push an agenda.

• David Gergen, James Carville, and Peter Bergen followed things up with discussion about whether McChrystal should stay or go. This panel wasn't too bad, but I'm guessing I'll be boycotting the majority of the chattering class as they pontificate over what Obama does or does not "have" to do. Personally, I don't think McChrystal should have been in the position to begin with. He was involved in overseeing both the Pat Tillman cover-up and prisoner abuse. That's integrity? Plus, he sounds like kind of an asshole. Then again, sometimes you need kinda of an asshole to get things done. Whatever decision Obama makes, I hope he makes it for the right reasons.

• Back to Gulf news now and the familiar dinging of the railroad crossing. Yes, still broken. I'm beginning to see some sort of symbolism here, and I think it's telling us the Gulf is screwed.

• Below you can watch our anchor interview Governor Bobby Jindal on the oil drilling moratorium. I have to admit, he was sounding pretty rational...and I feel like it's a trap. Because I know that the second I determine Kenneth the Page to be a sane Republican, he's going to do something crazy. Like, Michele Bachmann crazy. It's coming, people!

• So, you know how last night Jeffrey Toobin told us they're not going to overturn the drilling moratorium? Wrong! He's back to explain himself, but then we lose his satellite, and Anderson looks sad and quizzical. It's okay, Silver Fox, you'll get him back! And they did. Toobin went on to give the legal lowdown and noted that there was an option of going "rig by rig" instead of a blanket moratorium. I don't understand why they weren't doing this in the first place. Doesn't that sound rational? What am I missing here?
  

• Anderson: "What do you make of liberal groups and liberal bloggers who have been making a lot about the the judge who owned stock in oil companies? I mean, I tend to think a lot of people around here -- a lot of people across the country own stock in oil companies." Ah, yes. Those pesky "liberal" groups and bloggers. I hate it when media does this. So dismissive. Like all those "liberals" who wanted the public option...who turned out to be the majority of the country. But I digress.
  

• For the record, Jeff's answer, which makes me think the judge should be recused (emphasis mine): "Well, I don't think it's much ado about nothing but I think there's no corruption here. Judge Feldman has been on the bench since the Reagan administration, he's a very respected judge. But like most federal judges in Louisiana and Texas and, in fact, much of the world, he is an upper middle class Republican lawyer who was appointed to the bench. And those people, particularly in that part of the country, tend to be sympathetic to the oil business, have investments in the oil industry. It's not illegal for them to have investments in the oil business. But I think it indicates a mindset. That's why they were appointed."

• Gary Tuchman's piece on the Vessel of Opportunity program was both frustrating...and a little creepy. People like fishermen Carl Leblanc and Thomas Barrios want to work, yet can't even get anyone from the program to give them the time of day. The creepy part comes in when Gary tries to get answers from a BP contractor. Over and over, the guy tells our correspondent, "They've told me to refer media requests to Judy Paul." Apparently, BP turns their employees into Pod People. You have to hand it to Gary for the persistence. Though he is, in fact, the nicest guy in the world; he is not a pushover. Unfortunately, Pod People cannot be cracked. But I guess that guy is probably just trying to keep his job to support himself/his family as well. *Sigh* Life is too complicated.
  
  
  
  
  • Below is Drew Griffin's piece on Tyrone Benton, a survivor of the Deepwater Horizon, who claims to have seen a leak before the explosion:
  
  

• Celeb time! Oh, 360. Tonight we have Lenny Kravitz. Are You Gonna Go My Way?! I got to, go to know. Annnyhoo. I like Lenny. He's here because he's lived in the region for 17 years, and while that alone would not justify his appearance (to me, anyway), he's raising money for Gulf Aid, so good for that. His single is called "Ain't My Fault" and can be found on iTunes. I liked in the interview when Anderson asked Lenny if he was just waking up. That might have been a little awkward if he answered in the negative. Yes, wake up, Lenny! Don't you know you're talking to the Silver Fox?
  

• This bullet point contains a snow cone, because dang it's hot.
  

Holding Schools Accountable For Bullying, Hutaree Update, Obama Allowing Offshore Drilling, And Investigating Scientology Part III

Hi everyone. I seem to have just developed the worst headache, so I'm going to breeze past some of this. Otherwise, it's just going to come out cranky. Well, crankier than usual. At this point I think we all know the drill for the top of the show: a Scientology preview/recap.

Then Anderson Cooper is at the Magic Wall to talk about bullying. Yesterday we learned of the suicide of Phoebe Prince. Tonight we're told that 13-year-old Jon Carmichael and 12- year-old Kimberly Linczeski also recently took their own lives due to harassment from classmates. I wonder if there's any significance to the fact that so many of these kids choose hanging. It's hard for me to imagine anything worse than a parent finding their child like that and then having to cut them down.

From here we go to an Alino Cho piece in which she tries to talk to the principal of Phoebe Prince's high school regarding whether or not they dropped the ball on this case. She gets him to answer a couple of general questions at the door and then he threatens to call the cops. Defensive much?

For discussion, we're joined by author Rosalind Wiseman, expert on all things "mean girls." So much better than Dr. Phil. Of note is the notion that upon witnessing an incident, officials should not go to the bullied student, but rather the bullier. Kids that get picked on will say they're okay even when they're not. Rosalind says we need to get kids to believe in adults. Good advice.

Next up, Anderson has an interview with Jon Carmichael's parents, Tami and Tim, about the bullying their son faced. And it is beyond sad. If sad were a location, this interview resides about five miles past that spot.

Something that hasn't really come up in the coverage yet is how ingrained the acceptance of bullying is in our culture. Recently I've been watching the 90's show Freaks and Geeks. The teenage son is constantly being bullied. In one episode he's even thrown naked out into the hallway. Yet none of it is treated all that seriously by anyone. You see this over and over in TV shows and movies. It's like many people just expect it to happen.

Bullying isn't a new phenomenon by any means. It makes me wonder if it's gotten worse recently or kids are reacting to it in more extreme ways now. Perhaps even these suicides have been going on for decades and they just never got this kind of national attention, so no one even identified a widespread problem. Whatever's going on, people are paying attention now. This needs to stop.

Transitioning now to Drew Griffin updating us on those Hutaree militia people. Turns out they're looking more like those yahoos in Miami who plotted to blow up the Sears Tower, than anyone, you know, competent. But they still had a lot of weapons so let's not dismiss them too much.

On now to a Tom Foreman piece on Obama's offshore drilling plan. We get played clips of Campaign!Obama dissing on the notion, but this isn't exactly a flip flop since he's always been down with the practice to an extent. The Sierra Club is not happy, I'll tell you that.

For discussion of this, we're joined by David Gergen...and WTF is going on with the graphics? I guess 360 is trying new things. They do know that it's not the visuals that are their problem, right? Anyway! There's talk about bargaining chips..and getting Republicans to come on-board on energy legislation...and I'm wondering what part of "The Party of No" the Gerg does not understand.

It's time for part three of the Scientology series and I have to admit, it's starting to wear on me. It's not the report itself, but the presentation. I'm guessing this might end up as a special, which is no doubt the best way to watch. The way we're currently watching (edited over the whole week) makes it feel like you're seeing the same thing over and over. I get why they do it this way though. At least they're being consistent. Too many times we'll hear of a "series" that ends up having half its days bumped.

So anyway, the new stuff tonight is Anderson talking to church members who border on yelling at him for having the gall to ask questions about why the police were never notified about the abuse. Good times. Our anchor was actually pretty impressive in this segment. Particularly this part:

You said that Marty Rathbun beat people more than a dozen times. You said Mike Rinder has beat people and that was known. Apparently, at the time, at least some of it was known at the time. And yet, that seemed to be acceptable behavior in the church and no charges were ever filed against any of these people. It seems remarkable if, in fact, that is really the truth, unless the opposite is true and their charges are true and it was the head of the church who was doing these beatings, in which case, it would make sense that no charges would be filed or no one would come forward.

Remarkable indeed. And that's basically all I have to say.

The "shot" tonight is a kid climbing in one of those claw machine games. Eh. Not all that funny and actually probably dangerous. Bring back the cute animals! The show wasn't bad. That'll do it.