The President spoke last night

It was a brilliant speech, although devoid of the poetry and prose that characterizes his speeches, it was nevertheless outstanding. He was pragmatic to a fault. He explained clearly all of his points and if there was any doubt as to the nature of the war, the resolve and the outcome with a conclusion focused on an exit strategy. He was painfully frank and even described the Karsai government as mired in corruption.

There will be critics, no doubt. The Republicans and ill-intentioned malcontents will never be happy with anything he says and does. But he did inherit this mess and it is clear who is to blame if we fail. If we come out of this one somewhat victorious, the accolades will be the President’s and no one else.

He has a veritable hot potato in his hands, no thanks to Bush, Cheney and particularly Rumsfeld who facilitated the escape of Osama Bin Laden. But then again, nothing has been easy for this President and because of that, whatever small victories we see, however small the changes, they are that much more worthy and significant.

We have to stand behind him at this point. After all, we stood behind Bush after 9/11 as one nation, one people united in grief and resolve. But there will be some unpatriotic and asinine bastards who will forsake their country and their allegiance in favor of partisanship and petty vindictiveness.

I am against all wars, but in this case I can’t help but ponder on the merits of being there and getting us out in an orderly fashion while actually accomplishing something other than making the oil companies richer.