The McChrystal Rolling Stone article: the story behind the story

The result was a not only controversial but rich portrait of McChrystal – from editor of a West Point literary magazine to a dad who doesn’t mind his son’s blue mohawk, to a (possibly unwitting) player in the cover-up of Pat Tillman’s death by friendly fire.

In interviews published by Newsweek and the Burlington Free Press in Vermont, where he went to high school, Hastings was quoted Wednesday as saying he was very surprised by the impact of his Rolling Stone profile.

But Hastings is not a naïve reporter, if only 30 years old. A veteran of Baghdad, where his girlfriend was killed after coming to join him, Hastings has – in his own words – spent time around Catholic school, county jail, rehab, and the presidential candidates of 2008.

His mission on the campaign trail, he wrote in a 2008 GQ piece, was “basically: Ride the buses and planes with the candidates, have big lunches and dinners on the expense account, get sources drunk and singing, then report back the behind-the-scenes story.”

Deriding Rudy Giuliani for making light of the war in Iraq, where he had a brother fighting, and curious about John McCain’s purported womanizing, Hastings said he had trouble being objective. But he was not apologetic.

"Objectivity is a fallacy,” he wrote.

He talked about the game in which “you try to be friendly and nonthreatening” with politicians’ aides to “build trust” – but dismissed the trust as an illusion. In the same GQ article, Hastings described trying to get presidential candidate Mike Huckabee in an unguarded moment – “swearing, or bringing in a hooker, or breaking out in spontaneous prayer.”

Hastings doesn’t try to come off as a saint, but on The Hastings Report, his blog that has 142 followers as of Wednesday, he says he greatly respects writers “who live their lives with integrity and without compromise.”

Related:

• In replacing McChrystal with Gen. David Petraeus, Obama reasserts authority
• General McChrystal's Rolling Stone gaffe gets shrugs on front lines
• Three military commanders before General McChrystal who got the ax

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