Irony and Feeling Bitchy.

Irony. Remember when BO said the surge in Iraq wouldn't work. Even after coming face to face with the fact that the surge did work, he still couldn't bring himself to admit the surge worked. Now, dear leader has decided to give it a go in Afghanistan. Will I be breaking any laws if I call the POTUS a dumbass? I mean, I still have the right to my opinions, don't I? Er...well given that maybe only two or three (four if my brother happens to stop by) might read my comments and all threeish probably agree, I think I am safe for now.

This whole Obama-trauma has left me feeling ...bitchy for lack of a better term. I know it has only been what...two slow torturous months and already I feel like I'm drowning in new policies, new laws, a new f'in crisis every day, a new f'in bailout, congress is either unwilling or unable to stop the madness. Every day we move one step closer to totalitarianism, does that sound melodramatic? I keep telling people what is happening and beg them to call, write, do SOMETHING to slow down this f'in nightmare freight train...and some listen, some call(but I have to hand them the damned number). Why are so many people so complacent? Is it something in the f'in water?

But, to tell the truth, I think most of my family thinks I have gone off the deep end. Or maybe they are just as weary of hearing about this as I am. I am so scared my country is going to disappear. I feel like it is disappearing before my eyes and I am grabbing at straws trying desperately to keep it from fading away. I am haunted by the quote from Reagan "We are indeed, and we are today, the last best hope of man on earth." There is no where else to go. This is it. There is no where for us to escape to, as so many others have done around the world. And where did they flee? They came to America because they knew what Ronald Reagan knew. America is the last best hope of man on earth...but my hope is fading fast.

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Down and Out Progressives, Ctd.

Mike Allen quotes an administration official on Obama's new Afghanistan policy to be announced tomorrow:
President Barack Obama plans to announce an escalation in Afghanistan in a speech at the White House on Friday morning, committing 4,200 more troops and hundreds more civilians, and embracing a new system of benchmarks to measure progress.

“He’s gone all in,” said an official briefed on the plan. “This is Obama’s war. He’s pushed all the chips to the center of the table.”

Some progressives will try and claim that this approach is exactly what they've counseled. The more honest among them will attack the president for escalating the war. But it's clear that the "all in" approach is not what they wanted. Earlier this week Ilan Goldenberg, the policy director at the progressive National Security Network, offered this analysis at the Huffington Post:

The "all in" approach, best exemplified by John McCain and Joe Lieberman's op-ed in the Washington Post, argues for "victory" through a full scale commitment of undetermined length at an undetermined cost. It is supported by hawks like McCain and Lieberman who generally believe that America must "win" any war no matter the cost.

Goldenberg conceded that most progressives and realists favored a "minimalist approach," though he predicted that the administration would pursue a "middle approach" that involves "doing what we can to help the people of Afghanistan, while limiting our military commitment and recognizing that America's ability to influence events in far off unstable states such as Afghanistan is incredibly limited."

I'm struck by a couple of things, but none more so than the fact that the administration's left-wing supporters don't seem to have any real insight into what's going on inside the administration--because the progressives have no real relationship with the "realists" who are making policy. Otherwise Goldenberg wouldn't have offered speculation that was so clearly off-base. Neither would Joe Klein have written just last week:

The Obama plan, I am told, will not immediately add to the 17,000 additional U.S. troops that the President has already approved. And this is the fight that McCain, Lieberman and the neocons are itching for...

The president is going "all in" and adding more troops to the fight. His most vocal supporters on the left had no idea this was coming and if you'd asked them yesterday what they thought of such a plan they would have said it was neocon fanaticism. Now watch how they fall into line. But this policy announcement shows just how little influence, and how little insight, the progressives have right now on this administration.

Posted by Michael Goldfarb on March 26, 2009 06:59 PM