If your name happens to be Rolling Stone, Stanley McChrystal or David Petraeus, the last 48 hours have been a non-stop viral media roller coaster.
Let’s break this down in order: Rolling Stone’s profile of General McChrystal came to light early yesterday morning when the magazine sent out a blanket notice to every major outlet. Talking Points Memo outlines the exact time line (with tongue firmly through cheek) here. Rolling Stone waited till roughly 11 A.M. est to put the article, “The Runaway General,” online.
The brunt of the story involves McChrystal’s off-hand comments about the President, Vice-President and general’s staff that treat the military presence in Afghanistan with the same amount of importance as a 12-year old kid playing a first-person shooter on XBOX 360.
Politico accurately sums up the story as dominating an entire news cycle, despite news outlets being the only groups to read the entire piece until mid-morning yesterday. So much that Politico put a PDF–likely supplied by Wenner Media–online before being asked to remove the material.
As of today, General David Petraeus will replace McChrystal according to the New York Times. But the General’s opinions around Afghanistan will likely expand upon remarks from a Bloomberg News Summit last November, in which he spoke of the “enormous challenges” both for the United States and the logistics for the operation. While the General wouldn’t take a HuffPost question back then, now he’ll be more than happy to share his last words–especially with Rolling Stone.