New York Times Gingerly Hits Gen. McChrystal

I’ll have more on this a bit later, but this morning The New York Times editorial page urged Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the Obama administration’s pick to head U.S. troops in Afghanistan, to address extant questions about his knowledge of detainee abuse committed by Special Forces in Iraq under his command at his confirmation hearing tomorrow. You can’t really call the editorial an attack on McChrystal. This is the harshest it gets:

While there is no suggestion that General McChrystal was personally involved in any misconduct, he has a clear responsibility to illuminate what went wrong, what if anything was done to stop these horrors, and what he intends to do to ensure that they are not repeated under his command in Afghanistan.

Andrew Sullivan comments that the editorial “moves the MSM toward the legitimate story of McChrystal’s troubling proximity to some of the worst prisoner abuses in the war on terror.” Perhaps. But McChrystal’s testifying tomorrow alongside two other high-ranking military nominees, which may limit the time available to question him. As I said, I’ll have more on this later.