Re: Obama's War

I don't mean to pick on you Ezra, but I and many commentators on the right have a different take on the President's speech.

I think you must begin from the standpoint that the President is a man of the left, heir to the extremist anti-war McGovern wing of the Democrat Party. As such, his decision to ramp up the American commitment to Afghanistan is a bold step away from the defeatist war-politics of the Democrat Party over the last 40 years. As some have noted, this is the first Democrat Administration to send American troops into combat for the explicit purpose of defending America and furthering global foreign policy interests since Lyndon Johnson.*

No one would describe President Obama as a neo-conservative, but this is most certainly a welcome change in the long-term downward spiral of Democrat leadership as a responsible voice in foreign affairs. As such, President Obama needs to be supported and encouraged in this endeavor. In particular, we ought to cut him some slack for playing to his leftist base with timetables for withdrawal and the like. As Defense Secretary Gates and others in the Administration have made clear since the speech, those were rhetorical flourishes, not substantive Afghan policy deadlines.

*Please do not cite me Bill Clinton's humanitarian troop deployments and ineffectual, bellicose missile strikes. These were particularly unserious attempts at war, done more for triangulation political purposes than for any grown-up foreign policy rationale.