Rolling Stone Reporter Blocked From Embedding With Troops

Michael Hastings, the Rolling Stone reporter behind the profile that ultimately cost General Stanley McChrystal his job, has been barred from embedding with U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

“There is no right to embed,” Pentagon spokesperson Col. David Lapan told reporters Tuesday. Instead, Lapan explained, it is a decision left to the individual command, with trust between the officers and the reporter playing a key role.

Hastings, a freelance writer, accompanied McChrystal and his staff in Paris this April. Disparaging comments directed at members of the administration made by both staffers and the then-Afghan commander made it into a June issue of Rolling Stone magainze.