More ways to lose a war

That's a quote from this month's Rolling Stone interview with the President, likely a return favor for their earlier efforts on his behalf.

Here's more:

Let's talk about the war in Afghanistan. Where were you when you first heard about the comments made by Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his staff, and how did you feel as you read them for yourself?

I was in my office in the residence, in the Treaty Room. Joe Biden called me -- he was the first one who heard about it. I think it was Sunday night, and I had one of the staff here send me up a copy, and I read through the article...

Which really isn't talking about Afghanistan so much at all. But this is:

What we've had to do after an extensive review that I engaged in was to say to our commanders on the ground, "You guys have to have a strategy in which we are training Afghan security forces, we're going to break the Taliban momentum, but I am going to establish a date at which we start transitioning down and we start turning these security functions over to a newly trained Afghan security force." That is what we're in the process of doing.

So I told 'em, I said - you people go do your Army stuff or whatever, but I'm putting a stop to it as soon as I can. (High five.)

And there's that message to the base, one of those messages directed at some that may undercut the messages sent to others that are the hallmark of "strategy" in Obama's war. (There's this assurance, too: "The fact of the matter is, when we came in, what we learned was that the neglect of Afghanistan had been more profound than we expected." So blame Bush apparently still works in some quarters.)

Let's leave the Lady GaGa Fan Club Newsletter (or the big-time magazine that "got" McChrystal, if you prefer) for a moment. Bob Woodward appeared on ABC's Good Morning America today (video) to discuss Obama's Wars with George Stephanopoulos. "It appears in many many scenes throughout this book," the host observed, "that the president is approving a compromise that he doesn't fully believe in."

"He wants out of Afghanistan," Woodward explained, adding "the thing you never see in all of these discussions is the president stepping up like he did in his political campaign in 2008 and say 'yes we can.'"

Turning back to the Rolling Stone, as evidenced by the tone of the article (and sheesh - we know fellating the president is the cost of access - but Wenner must have popped his whole damn stash of Women Extenze before he cleared security...) Obama could have found no friendlier environment in which to rally the support of that base - and on every other issue he availed himself of that opportunity. Witness the intense passion displayed in the surprise encore with which our story concludes.

[Signaled by his aides, the president brings the interview to a close and leaves the Oval Office. A moment later, however, he returns to the office and says that he has one more thing to add. He speaks with intensity and passion, repeatedly stabbing the air with his finger.]

One closing remark that I want to make: It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines in this midterm election... right now, we've got a choice between a Republican Party that has moved to the right of George Bush and is looking to lock in the same policies that got us into these disasters in the first place, versus an administration that, with some admitted warts, has been the most successful administration in a generation in moving progressive agendas forward...

Everybody out there has to be thinking about what's at stake in this election and if they want to move forward over the next two years or six years or 10 years on key issues like climate change, key issues like how we restore a sense of equity and optimism to middle-class families who have seen their incomes decline by five percent over the last decade. If we want the kind of country that respects civil rights and civil liberties, we'd better fight in this election...

Then he grabbed a Stratocaster from Rahm Emanuel, lit it on fire, and like totally smashed it through a Marshall Stack... Seriously though, it's not hard to imagine Jann Wenner and Company, Bic lighters held high, chanting "yes we can, yes we can" after Obama first left the Oval Office, then cheering lustily on his return.

Without noticing that the Afghanistan song and dance number didn't make the cut for that medley of greatest hits.

Postscript - a bit more from those old dudes Woodward and Stephanopoulos...

"He wants out of Afghanistan," Woodward explained, adding "the thing you never see in all of these discussions is the president stepping up like he did in his political campaign in 2008 and say 'yes we can.'"

"That's what gets your Washington Post colleague David Ignatious," Stephanopoulus responded, "he wrote about your portrayal of the president, and he said this:

'Woodward shows us an Obama who is halfway to war, doubting his strategy even as he asks young men and women to die for it. That's the one thing a president must not do: Sacrifice lives for a policy he doesn't think can succeed.'"

"He [Obama] is an intellectual, as we know," Woodward observed. "He's the law professor, and he's looked at the facts on Afghanistan which I lay out. It's a dreary picture... last spring at the end of one of these briefings he said 'given that definition of the problem I don't know how we're going to come up with a solution.' And so intellectually he realizes 'real, real hard' - he knows as commander in chief he has to do something..."

Which brings to my (non-intellectual) mind an Orwell quote...

The English intelligentsia, on the whole, were more defeatist than the mass of the people - and some of them went on being defeatist at a time when the war was quite plainly won - partly because they were better able to visualize the dreary years of warfare that lay ahead. Their morale was worse because their imaginations were stronger. The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory.

If only the rest of us had imagination, we could understand how they must feel.

Previously: There are many ways to lose a war...

Next: How to lose a war (part three: with friends like us...)