The one theme that repeatedly emerged in interviews was a belief that the White House never pressed hard enough on what was supposed to be a signature goal. Although the closure of Guantanamo Bay was announced in an executive order, which Obama signed on Jan. 22, 2009, the fanfare never translated into the kind of political push necessary to sustain the policy.
I'm sorry but this is getting ridiculous.
The Washington Post, in its continuing push of its reporter Bob Woodward's Obama Wars, publishes the first of three extracts this morning, "Military Thwarted President Seeking Choice in Afghanistan".
At some point someone has to expose the exposure and reveal the costly game that is going on here. Bob Woodward is not going to do it, because to do so would cut off his access and his books. President Obama's advisors are not going to do it because it would reveal weakness beyond the "wise compromise" they wave so furiously in Woodward's account. And the US military certainly are not going to do it because it would pull back the curtain on their triumph over the White House and the person who is supposedly their Commander-in-Chief.
I am against the US military intervention in Afghanistan. But, if it is going to happen, I would at least appreciate that it be done honestly and without these crocodile tears. I would like a President who says forthrightly, "This is what we are doing," rather than one whose advisors, over the following weeks and months, whisper to their favoured correspondent, "We didn't really like this but the military was so mean. What could we do?"
You want sympathy, boys? Go find Oprah.
And Mr President: come out from behind your whispering staff. Face your military. Command or admit that you no longer command.
Sunday, April 24, 2011 at 7:48