{"id":4446,"date":"2014-01-12T20:28:31","date_gmt":"2014-01-12T20:28:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=4446"},"modified":"2014-01-12T20:28:31","modified_gmt":"2014-01-12T20:28:31","slug":"could-this-memoir-have-waited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=4446","title":{"rendered":"Could this memoir have waited?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>John McCain isn&#8217;t exactly a friend of Barack Obama. I&#8217;ve had this nagging notion that McCain hasn&#8217;t gotten over getting drubbed by the then-young senator from Illinois in their 2008 campaign for the presidency.<\/p>\n<p>The Arizona U.S. senator, though, posits an interesting thought about a memoir that is critical of his former campaign adversary. He said today the author of &#8220;Duty,&#8221; former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, should have waited until the end of the Afghanistan War to release this tell-all tale.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2014\/01\/12\/john-mccain-robert-gates_n_4585156.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037<\/p>\n<p>It is puzzling, some have argued, that a former defense chief &#8212; who was asked to stay on when the new commander in chief took charge in 2009 &#8212; would be so harshly critical of his former boss at this time in history.<\/p>\n<p>These kinds of memoirs do reverberate around the world. The United States is seeking to wind down its longest-running war, seeking to hand combat operations over to the Afghans who have everything to gain and lose in this struggle.<\/p>\n<p>Does this memoir undercut that effort? Does it place men and women in harm&#8217;s way in additional peril at some undefined level?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not sure when it&#8217;s ever right to publish a memoir that criticizes the commander in chief while military operations are still on-going.<\/p>\n<p>I do respect John McCain&#8217;s view on these matters, given his own extensive and distinguished military career. <\/p>\n<p>Now that the book is out and the full-throated chatter on it has commenced, time will tell if it does any damage in the field.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John McCain isn&#8217;t exactly a friend of Barack Obama. I&#8217;ve had this nagging notion that McCain hasn&#8217;t gotten over getting drubbed by the then-young senator from Illinois in their 2008 campaign for the presidency. The Arizona U.S. senator, though, posits an interesting thought about a memoir that is critical of his former campaign adversary. He &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=4446\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Could this memoir have waited?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[167,540,2546,3978],"class_list":["post-4446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-afghan-war","tag-barack-obama","tag-john-mccain","tag-robert-gates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}