An Uncertain Trumpet?
Charles Krauthammer in his column today enlarges on his complaints about President Obama's non-eloquence at West Point.
It was meant to be stirring. It fell flat. In August, he called Afghanistan "a war of necessity." On Tuesday night, he defined "what's at stake" as "the common security of the world." The world, no less. Yet, we begin leaving in July 2011?
Now keep reading.
Despite my personal misgivings about the possibility of lasting success against Taliban insurgencies in both Afghanistan and the borderlands of Pakistan, I have deep confidence that Petraeus and McChrystal would not recommend a strategy that will be costly in lives without their having a firm belief in the possibility of success.
I would therefore defer to their judgment and support their recommended policy.
So Charles' advice is for the president to go out and deliver a Churchillian address ... on behalf of a policy of whose merits Charles himself remains dubious. But that kind of gap between rhetoric and reality is much more dangerous to a policy and a presidency than an underwhelming speech.