The president has an unerring instinct for taking any tough situation and making it worse, whether it is the recession, the car business, health care, the oil spill and now the war in Afghanistan.
General McChrystal had his critics, of course, and many respected commentators thought the president should fire him.
But the United States needs a war time president, which means one who can see past the headline of the day and the day-to-day news cycle to focus on victory in a long and difficult struggle with a relentless and deadly enemy.
Like Lincoln, FDR and W discovered, success in war requires patience with warriors in the field, and only occasionally changes in command when those warriors either won't or can't fight or won't agree to the overall strategic mission.
Those weren't Stanley McChrystal's faults. Like all of President Obama's other targets, the general failing in the eyes of the president had everything to do with Obama, not the war. Thus he had not only to be removed, but also humbled.
Exactly like Lincoln wouldn't have done it.