At a time when our President should be concerned first and foremost with capping the oil spill (which, as of today’s accounts, has gotten terribly worse), he has instead found himself capping off spillage of another kind—speech. In fact, just minutes ago, Obama fired General Stanley McChrystal because of his comments in a forthcoming Rolling Stone article.

This begs the question: what ever happened to free speech and does it exist in the context of the workplace?

First, what did McChrystal really say and would the outcome be different if the article contained only glowing remarks about the President? Well, of course, the later question’s answer is a resolute: duh!

Now to the former question: Allegedly (though I’ve not read the article; it hits newsstands on Friday) McChrystal’s comments demonstrate how he is at odds with the Obama administration’s approach to the war. Though he didn’t personally criticize the President, McChrystal did expound on the idea that he was handed an “unsellable” position and the period of time spent by the President deliberating whether to send more troops was “painful.” The general further stated that he was “betrayed” by Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, the White Houses’ choice to be McChrystal’s diplomatic partner in Afghanistan. He accused Eikenberry of raising doubts about the reliability of President Hamid Karzai in order to give himself some cover in case the U.S. effort failed.

Other juicy points of the article include a joke by McChrystal that he didn’t know who Joe Biden was. I would probably make that same joke!

At any rate, the Obama White House is absolutely up in arms. The President was stunned and disappointed and apparently almost blew a gasket. His press secretary Gibbs wasted no time but to inform anyone that Obama was so dreadfully disappointed.

It’s no surprise then that on the heels of the story’s leak, Obama recalled McChrystal to the White House where today he fired him.

So as I see it, McChrystal got fired for giving his opinion—an opinion Obama didn’t like. Circling back to my original question: whatever happened to free speech? All indications suggest that it doesn’t exist when you speak ill of the President and especially when the President is your boss.

As a final note, this morning in a public parking lot, I saw a well-equipped, shiny and flashy Escalade with spinning rims outfitted with the sticker: OBAMA – Our Big Ass Mistake Again. I wonder if that person would be summoned to the White House and fired. I wouldn’t recommend driving that car around Hyde Park when the big O’s in town.