Tonight President Obama will interrupt yet another hour of television so that we may hear him share his brilliance on yet another topic. This time the topic will be Afghanistan and what he has decided to do with the request for additional troops. There’s no need for you to waste your time with his address. I can tell you what he will say:
To the hard left –
“While McChrystal may have been my pick, he’s not the McChrystal I knew. Turns out he’s an agent for the military industrial complex.
McChrystal asked for 40,000 troops but I’m President! I know better! I’m only going to give him 34,000 troops! That will show him that he works for me!
And another thing, I’ve told McChrystal not to be making any long term plans in Afghanistan. I’m announcing tonight that while I’m sending another 34,000 troops, we will withdraw from Afghanistan by mid 2011. Never mind that it will take nearly a year for the troops to actually get into theatre and they won’t really have any time to do anything, this is all about how I look politically.
Finally, we wouldn’t be in this mess if I hadn’t inherited a corrupt Afghan government from George Bush. I will bang my teleprompter on the table and insist that the Afghan government straighten up and fly right and they’d better do it right away…..OR ELSE!”
To conservatives and other thinking Americans –
“I’m announcing that I’m sending an addition 34,000 troops to Afghanistan. I’ve considered General McChrystal’s recommendation for a long time and believe that this is a number, rather than his, is a number that let’s me pretend to support our men and women in uniform while still throwing a bone to my homies.
Let me be clear that while I’m sending additional troops, I am not changing their engagement orders. They will continue to be hamstrung with ridiculous limitations and second guessing. If that doesn’t work, we’ll be sure to harass them with frivolous lawsuits and court martial to ensure that their desire for accomplishment is completely removed. Can you say “semper fi?”
In reality, I’m making no decision at all. In fact, I’m purposely pushing any real action off until after the mid term elections of next year. If the Democrats manage to hold on I’ll be able to do to the military what I’ve done to the finance industry, auto industry and soon, the medical industry; I’ll neuter them to a point where they will become ineffective at accomplishing their core tasks. If the Republicans win, better yet! I can blame what will become an intractable mess on the meddling “attitude of no” that is the Republican party!”
There, go find something good to watch on a movie channel or your DVR. There’s no reason to watch Obama announce another vote “present” on prime time TV!
The big O. (and his teleprompter) can fill an hour with so many empty words, it is like a strange music, or the abstract writing of James Joyce. Just think of it as art, a contemporary aria in the inflections of a college professor’s voice, who sounds pretty smart, but simply fills a slot of time.