While I've often stated that I don't really like Barack Obama, that doesn't mean I'm incapable of feeling sorry for him, or that I want him to fail.
Personally, I'm ambivalent about the war in Afghanistan, but I feel compelled to support the decision to make a surge happen there. I don't know how anyone can pull off adding 30,000 troops and then promising to withdraw them in a year's time but I guess that's the plan and Obama's sticking to it.
As a candidate, Obama was fairly clear about his stance on Afghanistan, although to the never-ending dismay of "progressives," he's still not doing what they want, which is a complete withdrawal as soon as possible, and probably with a huge note of apology as well. No less a personality than Michael Moore was on Larry King's show trying to speak for everyone with his somber look and his demand that Obama needs to change the course and bring the troops home NOW.
It's a good thing that I don't give a fuck for people like Michael Moore who isn't a foreign policy expert and just wants to hear the sound of his own voice because it's ultra important that we obey his words. (Lefties like to believe they are the soul and conscience of everything, often mistaking bib-dribbling for searing self-examination.) Honestly, leftist complaints are getting as tiresome as right-wing obstructionism and bitterness, as exemplified by Dick Cheney, crawling out from his rock one more time to vilify the president and getting away with it as well. The president has two contending spoon-clanging groups demanding he does what they want at the expensive of the other. Talk about unenviable.
This decision by Obama is really like picking your disease: horrible and painful or more horrible and painful. And while criticizing the Bush Junta can only go so far, one has to wonder how lacking the hardon to get super evil dictator Saddam Hussein wouldn't have concluded the Afghan campaign a lot quicker. Not only has the war gone on for eight years, but everyone seems to have dropped the ball. Bush and Co.'s idea of war on the cheap has come back to haunt everyone but here we have everyone suddenly asking how much this surge will cost. Huh? It seems like overnight, the spendthrifts got religion and are now born-again bean counters. During the height of both wars, I failed to see our Media Glitterati wringing their hands about the cost of the operations. Wait, they're too busy throwing out the useless phrase "it's Obama's war now." Exactly how does saying that solve anything, clarify anything, or make any sense at all? It's a stupid, useless phrase but like VD, everyone will catch it and repeat it as though some deep truth is being revealed.
No, I don't envy Obama at all, because he's apparently the leader of 300 million presidents.
