Bold and Fresh for Afghanistan

Everyone is eagerly waiting to hear what the teleprompter will tell Obama to say about Afghanistan tonight, but one thing's for sure--it better be good because the noose seems to be tightening from all sides.

No need to quote the right, here's the lefty site Southern Studies accusing him of being a shill for the military-industrial complex. Here's MoveOn refusing to move on, and here's Glenn frickin Greenwald audaciously comparing him to Bushitler. Poor Obama, a creature of his own political making.

So what's in store tonight, just words? Political triangulation? A strong speech that paints a vision of victory in the central front of the war on terror? We will shortly find out exactly what kind of president we have.

VIRTUAL TAILGATE..

Here's Frank, er, Tom Maguire:

If Obama thinks, as he did in August, that this is a vital war of necessity (unlikely), then he should exert his oratorical skills and rally his base.

Yes, a base that believes we should leave tomorrow. But Obama's problem circles back to his own rhetoric--if he were to weasel out and withdraw it will be tantamount to admitting that Bush's laissez faire approach was actually better than his own campaign rhetoric of escalation. At worse it would suggest that losing is actually an option. Bush can't be blamed at that point.

Meanwhile John at Power Line breaks down Obama's personal trap and why he can't get any love from the base in trying to wiggle out of it.

AFTERMATH 12/1

Certainly not Churchillian. In trying to read between the lines I came away with "we're setting this up so we can leave before my second term". He did talk about Pakistan and nukes, which really is the heart of the matter when it comes to AQ, but wouldn't that seem to require a "we will never tire, never waver, etc"?

BTW, before the speech Gibbs was literally mugged by Harry Smith of CBS (compared to a normal MSM interview) when he asked why it took so long to make this decision. As the Ace folks noted, he once again went to 'unprecedented':

Well look, Harry, I think that what's been done in this process is somewhat unprecedented on the issue of Afghanistan...

..Well, look. I think this Administration has taken the fight to Al Qaida unlike any that we've ever seen.

One has to wonder how Hillary might react to that based on this interview with her husband several years ago:



So here we have Bill Clinton saying he did more to get UBL/AQ in seven years than Bush did in the 8 months before 9/11 (he phrased it somewhat differently--but it was a lot more, dammit!) and now Gibbs says Obama has taken the fight to unprecedented levels, which seems to diss both former presidents. What, do they think Bush spent his entire two terms playing golf like them? Do they think capturing or killing of most of the AQ hierarchy while making it possible for Obama to have a show trial in New York just happened all by itself along with Saddam dangling at the end of a rope? For liberals they sure love to chest-thump, or so it would seem.