In this week’s issue: George Packer on the McChrystal debacle; Ken Auletta on Afghanistan’s first media mogul; Tad Friend on Steve Carell; Charlayne Hunter-Gault on Jacob Zuma; Rebecca Mead on playgrounds; James Surowiecki on financial illiteracy; Sasha Frere-Jones on Robyn; James Wood on David Mitchell; Peter Schjeldahl on Charles Burchfield; David Denby on “Knight and Day” and “Winter’s Bone”; fiction by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum; and more: http://www.newyorker.com/
I hate everything about the McChrystal situation. It’s a no-win. He has to be fired because of the situation, but he was in many ways uniquely qualified to help in Afghanistan. Karzai isn’t going to trust Patraeus the way he does McChrystal. That being said I don’t think Obama was left with any choice. That’s not to say that Karzai isn’t part of the problem, particularly his jewelry, however much like everything related to Afghanistan, we have to make the best of a bad situation.
