NV-SEN

Sharron Angle's Fringe Third Party Sponsored Virulently Anti-Gay Flier In '90s

Justin Elliott | June 24, 2010, 6:01PM

Sharron Angle (R)

The far-right third party that Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle called home in the 1990s supported abolishing "the debt money system" and ran a vitriolic anti-gay insert in state newspapers that portrays LGBT people -- or, as Angle's party called them, "sodomites" -- as child-molesting, HIV-carrying, Hell-bound freaks, according to documents obtained by TPM.

As we reported earlier this month, Angle was a member of Nevada's Independent American Party, a Christian conservative-cum-libertarian third party, for at least six years while she was getting her feet wet in politics in the 1990s. Independent American Party members told us that Angle switched to be a Republican in 1997 out of political expediency as she was preparing to make a run for state-level office.

But the details of her time in the Independent American Party have been somewhat shrouded in mystery -- which brings us to the two documents we obtained from that era.

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Afghanistan

How A Rolling Stone Profile Wrecked Stanley McChrystal's Reputation

Justin Elliott | June 22, 2010, 5:30PM

General Stanley McChrystal

It's not every day that a magazine article takes down a four-star general.

The country woke this morning to the news of a profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal in Rolling Stone with quote after quote of the general and his aides dissing top Obama Administration officials, as well as the president himself. After a day-long media freak-out, McChrystal is set to meet with the president at the White House tomorrow with Robert Gibbs having pointedly left the door open to the general losing his job. All this comes at a time when the Afghan war is not going particularly well.

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Stanley McChrystal

How McChrystal And Co. Blew The Rolling Stone Profile

Justin Elliott | June 22, 2010, 3:34PM

A general, his aides, and one reporter, stuck on a bus from Paris to Berlin, and drinking case after case of Bud Light Lime ...

That's the movie trailer version of how Gen. Stanley McChrystal ended up with a trainwreck of a profile in Rolling Stone, in which he and his aides ended up on the record trashing President Obama and virtually every other important civilian decision-maker on the Afghan war.

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David Obey

Top Dem Rep Wants 'Reckless, Renegade' McChrystal To Resign

Justin Elliott | June 22, 2010, 1:18PM

Rep. David Obey (D-WI)

Rep. Dave Obey (D-WI), chair of the House Appropriations Committee, just released this statement calling on Gen. Stanley McChrystal to resign in the harshest terms, and calling him the latest in "a long list of reckless, renegade generals."

After referencing a speech McChrystal gave in London last year in which the general made strong statements about his policy preferences, Obey says:

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Stanley McChrystal

Gates: 'McChrystal Made A Significant Mistake'

Justin Elliott | June 22, 2010, 12:09PM

Sec. of Defense Robert Gates

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in a statement this morning that Gen. Stanley McChrystal "made a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment" for his comments in a Rolling Stone profile.

"Gen. McChrystal has apologized to me and is similarly reaching out to others named in this article to apologize to them as well," Gates said. "I have recalled Gen. McChrystal to Washington to discuss this in person."

Here's the full statement:

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Stanley McChrystal

Rolling Stone Editor Explains Fact-Checking Of McChrystal Profile

Justin Elliott | June 22, 2010, 11:54AM

Rolling Stone magazine article on General Stanley McChrystal

Rolling Stone Managing Editor Will Dana told TPM in an interview this morning that the fact-checking process for the magazine's profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal went extremely smoothly and the magazine has "utter confidence and faith in the reporting."

Dana said that, contra a report in Politico, neither McChrystal nor anyone else was shown the article before it ran.

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Afghanistan

Majority Of Jabs In McChrystal Profile Came From Aides

Justin Elliott | June 22, 2010, 10:10AM

General Stanley McChrystal

One interesting thing about the Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal that has Washington in a tizzy today is that virtually all of the jabs at President Obama and other Administration officials came not from McChrystal himself, but from unnamed aides to the general.

Now, these are presumably experienced people who know how the media works, and it is clear that, at a minimum, McChrystal encouraged an environment in which such comments insulting to the chain of command were tolerated.

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