• Bettmann / Corbis file

    Oct. 15, 1950: President Truman and General MacArthur were no sooner seated in the ancient jalopy (the only auto available on Wake Island) which served as their limousine than they apparently began serious conversation. What was actually said there is not known, but presidential press secretary Charles Ross told newsmen, "I think the conference started in the car." This candid photo, made through the rear window of the venerable vehicle, shows the two leaders as they left the airstrip for the conference house.

    Pete Souza / Official White House Photo via AP file

    This Oct. 2, 2009 file photo provided by the White House, shows President Barack Obama meeting with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, aboard Air Force One in Copenhagen, Denmark. McChrystal has been summoned to Washington to explain derogatory comments about President Obama and his colleagues, administration officials said Tuesday.

    McChrystal / MacArthur: Deja vu all over again?

    Six months after their 1950 meeting on Wake Island, Truman fired MacArthur. Now, eight months after their meeting on Air Force One, McChrystal is being summoned to Washington, his professional fate unclear. In this video from MSNBC TV's The Daily Rundown, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell says:

    "I think it crosses the line of insubordination and it crosses the line of the Military Code of Justice. He has challenged the Commander-in-Chief and legally, morally, ethically, professionally, he ought to be canned. Now the question is whether practically you can fire the top commander at a time when the war is [...] in a very bad stage." -Watch

    As far back as last October, pundits and historians were comparing the conundrums Gen. McChrystal posed for President Obama with the troubled relationship between MacArthur and Truman, who famously reflected on the end of that affair: "I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was." This column by David Greenberg, a professor of history at Rutgers University, is a good example, in part because of its clear caveat about drawing too direct of an analogy:

    "Like most historical analogies bandied about in the media, this one is overdrawn. Yet the story of Truman and MacArthur remains useful to remember — not because it directly mirrors today's but because it created a dynamic in which subsequent presidents felt unduly constrained by the prospect of military commanders undermining them." -via The St. Petersburg Times / tampabay.com

    Click here to see the McChrystal / MacArthur comparisons popping up in a Bing News search.