I Support the Decision; I Fear the Expiration Date.
By: Jim Geraghty
The Campaign Spot
It is a strange and unfamiliar feeling: this is the first time President Obama has come to a decision that I think is in the neighborhood of the right call.
I'm no military expert. I don't know the precise formula for the quickest, most thorough, and most lasting victory in Afghanistan. General McChrystal seems like a smart, tough, determined guy; if he says 40,000 troops are needed, then he probably needs something close to 40,000 troops. I see all the objections and frustrations of the war critics, but I just don't see a better option that really improves our security. If this war could be fought on the cheap with unmanned drones, the world would be a better place. It's not; no point in fooling ourselves about the hard realities of the situation.
There was a lot in this speech to not like: endless recitations of what had gone wrong under the Bush administration, as if this war would be easy if Bush had made this decision or that. We didn't need the umpteenth reminder that then-state senator Obama opposed the war in 2003. We didn't need more references to "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression" and a lamentation of the unemployment rate. There was a little kitchen sink quality to this speech: the differences with Vietnam, a reference to the deficit, a lamentation of the "rancor and cynicism and partisanship that has in recent times poisoned our national discourse." A moment ago, Chris Matthews said the speech had a "Rube Goldberg quality."
My relief at Obama's decision comes with a nagging sense of having written about expiration dates. I think he's making the right call tonight; I hope he sticks by it, if, say a year from now his approval numbers are ten points lower, the base of his party is in revolt, flag-draped caskets are returning home, and the sense is that all of our progress has come at a supremely high price.
UPDATE: Chris Matthews has made a lot of outrageous, is-he-sober comments over the years, but I don't know if he's ever uttered something quite so reprehensible as, "he went to the enemy camp, tonight, to make the case."
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