 "Photo: N/A")
President Barack Obama is taking some flak for his speech Tuesday.
This time, it's more for its delivery than for its content, which is unusual for this president.
Even his sharpest opponents, those convinced that all of his words thinly disguise an America-hating Red Communist agenda, generally agree he's pretty adept at the use of language.
Speaking to a national television audience from the United States Military Academy at West Point, Obama announced the deployment of an additional 30,000 American troops (20,000 front-line combat soldiers plus 10,000 support personnel) to Afghanistan.
In doing so, Obama reached back to the nationwide post Sept. 11 sense of unity and purpose, and urged the country to try to recapture that zeitgeist.
He struggled to convey the urgency and magnitude of getting these troops to Afghanistan quickly to prop up that country's tenuous government, beat back Taliban advances, and prepare the Afghan military and police to finally take responsibility for their own security.
An awful lot of critics think he failed.
The conventional wisdom of punditry this week: The speech was confusing, and even contained a little rambling. The rationale for the policy initiative wasn't especially clear.
The speech wasn't inspiring or rousing – not much in the way of a call to arms.
It failed to capture any particular spirit at all.
That criticism is what Obama gets for having set the bar high – but really, this is just what we should have expected.
Obama has been fiery and inspiring at moments, but, far more often, he has been cool, level and dispassionate. I suppose there was a reasonable expectation that Tuesday's address would be Obama's opportunity to deliver a rousing halftime speech to the team – a brash, blistering "get out there, finish ‘em and win the game" moment.
We should know better, and it makes sense.
This is a serious, somber issue that was not an easy call for Obama to make on either a personal or professional level.
He has an obvious distaste for the kind of prolonged, open-ended, anywhere and anytime democracy-spreading that his predecessor was happy to practice.
Not to mention that this could be the very thing that defines his presidency.
Health care is huge, certainly, and getting it done will be politically historic.
But, success in Afghanistan will be historically historic. It's never been done before.
It's important to understand that, as part of the rollout of this strategy, Obama is massaging the definition of success.
He has jettisoned nation-building as a goal. Obama just wants to get out of there with a functional government in place, with the Taliban good and pummeled.
That is just fine, though. Defining success as something that can be done, then proceeding to do that thing, is more than has ever been achieved in Afghanistan.
Obama wants to refocus on Pakistan, where the Taliban's central nervous system now rests and where whatever remains of al-Qaida still plies its vile trade.
That is also just fine.
Recognizing Pakistan as central to the fight against Islamist terrorism is long overdue.
I think Obama has got it right, though not everyone agrees.
Much talk this week has been of Congressional Democrats resigning themselves to this decision – quietly accepting it, but far from convinced that it's the right one.
If Obama's speech is to be judged a failure, it would probably have to be on those grounds.
After all, Obama doesn't need the former vice president on his side – and Dick Cheney will never be convinced anyway – but he does need the current vice president with him.
Joe Biden is a well known opponent of escalation in Afghanistan and a supporter of the so-called "limited mission."
While Cheney was loudly and cantankerously accusing Obama of "dithering" and of "showing weakness," the president was in fact working hard to find the answer he believed was right.
He found it – but it is not the answer many in his party, including his own vice president, wanted.
This is not a show of weakness but of profound strength.
is a member of the 
2 comments