mike viqueira at the white house and andrea mitchell, let me start with you. what are you hearing at this moment about what we've seen so far this morning. >> certainly colonel jacobs has the right take on this, i think, which is that you would have expected that he wouldn't be leaving this quickly, that general mcchrystal would not have left the white house if he was going to participate. i wouldn't rule out the possibility that he was going back to the pentagon and it being so close that he then would be back and we don't absolutely know whether or not it's all over and whether he has been fired. i just talked to a top white house, rather a top foreign policy official current administration official not involved in the white house meetings and he said, look, he's got to go. this is not a tenable situation. but when you talk to people around town, chris, people are arguing it both ways. that he is critical to the effort, not indispensable from the effort. if you believe in the