Today it's all about Stanley. The deeper question is what will Obama's Afghan strategy be, going forward?

George Stephanopoulos:

Historian Robert Dallek argues Obama should emulate FDR and fire McChrystal.

But my hunch is that Doris Kearns Goodwin has the most influential take of the day. She asks “what would Lincoln do?” The answer? Turn the other cheek to McChrystal’s “insolence” and focus on the task at hand: fighting this war. That’s directed right at Obama’s sweet spot.

All of my reporting indicates President Obama truly hasn’t made up his mind, but my bet is Obama will follow Lincoln’s lead and keep McChrystal for now.

Peter Beinart:

The flap over the Rolling Stone article is much ado about nothing. But the general isn’t pursuing Obama’s Afghan policy. Peter Beinart on why the president needs a new commander to end the war.

Robert Scheer:

After the brilliant Rolling Stone article by Michael Hastings, President Barack Obama has no valid option other than to fire Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Not because of the dozen outrageous anti-administration verbal gaffes which have been reported, but rather because this definitive piece on the “Runaway General” establishes the man in charge of the Afghanistan misadventure as an egotistical flake whose half-baked Afghan war-fighting strategy should never have been endorsed in the first place. It is McChrystal’s policy of counterinsurgency (COIN) that must be fired more than the man who exemplifies its irrationality.

Howie P.S.: Today it's all about Stanley. The deeper question is what will Obama's Afghan strategy be, going forward?