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Reports are circulating that President Barack Obama (D-Chi) has decided to approve the deployment of an additional 34,000 troops in Afghanistan. Though on the face of it this is a refreshing show of strength and character by the Nobel Peace Prize winner, I would like to be the first to announce that the surge is not working. In fact, I will go so far as to declare it is a failure.

You may recall that this was the uniform response of the loyal opposition to the troop surge in Iraq. Everyone from Nancy Pelosi to Harry Reid was quick to call that surge a failure, before the troops were even in place. Our current Secretary of State went so far as to call Gen. David Petraeus a liar when he gave a detailed briefing of how the surge was working.

So even though the first troops aren’t scheduled to arrive in country before next March, it isn’t too early to call it a failure. The timing is instructive. Eight months after Gen. Stanley McChrystal stated the urgent need for quick action, the first troops will begin to arrive. The deployment is scheduled to take nine months.

However, beginning in June, well before the bulk of the troops are in place, the administration will explore “off ramps,” studying benchmarks which will determine whether to halt deployments, adopt a more limited strategy, or “begin looking very quickly at exiting.” In other words, at the same stage of deployment which led Obama himself to declare the Iraqi surge a failure, he and his advisors will try to determine whether the Afghan surge is successful.

This is actually a brilliant strategy. It will mollify the antiwar left, revitalizing the base in time for the 2010 elections. It will enable Obama to appear tough, willing to make the tough decisions. It will show him to have a realistic view of the world, and of the use of American power. It will also allow him to finesse the hawkish words he employed back when he was using  Afghanistan as a Bush-battering cudgel. He will be able to take ownership of the war, and end it.

By next June, having reviewed the situation on the ground and finding it still flawed, he can strike a statesmanlike pose and announce “Despite the deployment of additional troops, the situation in Afghanistan has continued to deteriorate. I cannot in good faith continue to risk the lives of the men and women of the Armed Forces in pursuit of a failed policy.”

It will be especially gratifying for him to add, “There was a time when this strategy could have succeeded. That time was 2003. Our failure to do the right thing then means that doing it now is the wrong thing. Therefore I am ordering the immediate withdrawal of all US forces from Afghanistan.”

He might, for good measure, consider quoting that great statesman John Kerry, “How can you ask a soldier to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

For all those reasons, I am happy to get out in front on this one. Again, the surge isn’t working.

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a reliably leftist columnist with an outsized ego.  He is so full of himself that he makes Barack Obama seem humble, or even self-effacing by comparison. Not only is Pitts always right, but he possesses the gift of divination. He can explain what his critics really mean, and what they are actually thinking when they disagree with him.

Take, for example, his column endorsing the decision to try self-confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a New York City courtroom. This decision, ostensibly made by Attorney General Eric Holder, was met with widespread scorn and disbelief. Pitts wrote that critics cited “questions of security, fears of acquittal (and) other obfuscatory concerns.”

Obfuscatory concerns? By this Pitts implies that there are no legitimate reasons to oppose this arbitrary sop to the far left and latest attempt to appease those who would destroy us. Indeed, Pitts asserts, if the critics “would be honest with themselves, they’d admit” that the real reason for their opposition is the desire to see Mohammad denied the rights guaranteed Americans by the US Constitution. They have a visceral, irrational need to see him punished.

“But you have to wonder,” Pitts writes. “Are our emotional needs the most important consideration here? It’s worth remembering that even the . . . leaders of the Nazi regime found themselves facing not summary execution, but a trial before a military tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany.”

This is a standard leftist trope to justify trying Mohammad et al. in New York, that even the Nazis received a trial. Pitts is the first to admit that the trial they received was under the auspices of a military tribunal. It is the height of absurdity to rely on this argument, because it was precisely that, a military tribunal, that Mohammad was facing when the Boy King ascended to the throne. There was no talk of a summary execution. Pitts came up with that one all by himself. Perhaps because, given his gift of divination, he knew what the judge, jury and attorneys weren’t willing to admit to themselves.

There was a military tribunal underway. Mohammad had admitted his guilt and asked to be executed. Obama put a stop to this, and all other military tribunals, presumably because, having commenced under the previous administration, they could not be fair. But Obama offers a curious view of what is fair. He has stated that Mohammad will be found guilty, and will be executed. Holder has no doubt that Mohammad will be convicted. On what basis? Because, he explained, he informed his prosecutors that “Failure is not an option.” Furthermore, the Administration has assured us that even if Mohammad is acquitted, he will remain in custody

Holding a trial in which conviction is a foregone conclusion has not historically been a defining characteristic of the American criminal justice system. Rather, it has much more in common with the show trials mounted under Stalin. While the quality of his writing is laughable enough, the soundness of Pitts’ conclusion is even more worthy of derision: “We need this trial more than Mohammad does. For all its risks–and they are real–it offers a prize worth risking for: the promise of feeling like Americans again.”

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested for "loud and tumultuous behavior in a public place" the other day. When asked about the incident during his prime time press conference last night, President Barack Obama said, "I don’t know all the facts," but stated that the Cambridge police "acted stupidly." Calling someone’s actions stupid without knowing all the facts is an exquisitely apt example of the timeworn adage, "The pot calling the kettle black."

The facts as we know them are this: Upon returning home from a trip to China, Gates found his front door jammed. He went around to the back, opened that door with his key, and tried to assist his cab driver in forcing the front door open. Apparently the driver tried to force it open with his shoulder. Lucia Whalen, who witnessed the incident from her office at "Harvard Magazine" next door, called the police. Sgt. James Crowley was dispatched to the scene. He informed Gates that he was investigating an attempted break in. Gates responded, "Why, because I’m a black man in America?"

 

Gates refused initially to provide identification, apparently feeling it unnecessary to have to prove who he was. Crowley later said he was "surprised and confused" by Gates’ reaction. No doubt he thought Gates would be grateful that the police were looking out for him. But he had picked the wrong man to expect to act reasonably. Gates, confronted with a white police officer, immediately began viewing this as a racial confrontation.

Not just any racial confrontation, but one involving a good deal of disrespect. "You don’t know who you’re messing with," he shouted. Crowley, who was at that time in the house, (Gates claimed he forced his way in), was unable to report to the station over his radio because Gates was shouting so loudly. He stepped outside, and asked Gates to step outside, too. Gates refused at first, but then came outside, continuing to shout at the officer. "You don’t know who I am, you’ll be sorry for messing with me."

Crowley was trying to deal with an angry man who was screaming at him and threatening him. He warned Gates twice that he was becoming disorderly, and eventually arrested him. National Public Radio’s "Morning Edition," in reporting Obama’s press conference remarks, described the underlying incident as Gates being arrested in his home for breaking and entering "even after he had shown his id." Obviously, that’s not the way it happened.

In addition to calling the Cambridge police stupid, Obama also made references to racial profiling. One has to wonder, what about this incident could possibly fall under that category? Does the President honestly think the witness would have ignored the incident if it were a white man trying to break down a door? Should the police have ignored the call once they learned it was a black man trying to break down the door? This was, to put it in the best possible light, unfortunate rhetoric from the nation’s President. If nothing else, it was further proof that he should never, ever speak without a Teleprompter.

We can give Gates the benefit of the doubt for his behavior. Having just flown all the way from China, he was no doubt exhausted, and so not in the best of moods. Returning home and finding his door jammed shut would only have exacerbated his frustration. He was justified in being upset. Especially since this was housing provided by Harvard University, where he was supposed to be regarded as a prominent member of the faculty. Frustrated, angry, indignant, and tired, it is easy to understand why he got so upset when he was then accused of breaking into his own home.

Basically, Gates threw a temper tantrum. It’s completely understandable, under the circumstances. Perhaps Crowley could have been more understanding, though, like the President, he didn’t have all the facts. No doubt he responded a bit more aggressively than his report suggested. A lot of cops don’t like it when people get in their faces. A lot of cops don’t like it when civilians start making threats at them.

Maybe there was a lot of stupid behavior going around. Another example might be the fact that the question was asked at all. Was it necessary to ask the President’s opinion on the matter? Would the question have been asked if the Professor in question had been white? Or, to look at it from another angle, if George Bush were still in the White House when Gates was arrested, would any reporter have asked him for his opinion?

Obviously, Obama is right, we still have a lot of work to do on the subject of race, but from this vantage point, it’s not good citizen neighbors reporting suspicious incidents, or the police who respond to the reports as their job requires who have the most work to do. It’s reporters and self-inflated Black Studies Professors who view every incident solely through the prism of race, and Presidents who instinctively take the side of African Americans over the police who arrested them.

 

Having concluded that deification alone is not sufficient to keep the infantile left on board the Obama juggernaut, his acolytes in the mainstream media have upped the ante with frequent fawning comparisons of the junior Senator from Illinois to John F. Kennedy, the once-junior Senator from Massachusetts.

The similarities are uncanny, and uncannily legion. Both rose to prominence on the strength of their awesome oratorical powers. Kennedy was married to Jackie, a beautiful, classy dame wearing pearls. Obama is married to Michelle, a beautiful, classy dame wearing pearls. Kennedy had two photogenic children willing to ham it up for the cameras. Obama has two cute little girls, one of whom, according an article in "The San Francisco Chronicle," said she thought it would be "cool" to live in the White House. Both project a substantial change to politics-as-usual. Kennedy surrounded himself with intellectuals like Andre Malraux and Arthur M. Schlesinger. Obama surrounds himself with intellectuals like Chris Matthews, Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers.

Both men went to Harvard. Both men wrote books describing formative periods in their life. Both had to run against major precedent-breaking obstacles: Kennedy’s Catholicism, Obama’s African-Americanism. Kennedy gave a speech in Berlin during which he called himself a jelly doughnut. Obama wants to give a speech in Berlin, though given our more health-conscious era, insiders suggest he is more likely to compare himself to a whole wheat bagel or, in a bid for Hispanic votes, a tortilla.

Given these remarkable similarities, it is possible to project Obama’s Presidential achievements by studying Kennedy’s. Early in Obama’s Presidency, he will sign off on a CIA plan to train Iranian dissidents. He will promise them air support when they launch an attempt to overthrow the oppressive theocratic regime. Once the invasion is underway, he will renege, and the rebel forces will be slaughtered at the Bay of Unclean Flesh.

JFK fulfilled his promise to meet face-to-face with Nikita Krushchev with no preconditions. The Russian Premier was so impressed with his interlocutor’s sincerity and grasp of geopolitics that he immediately embarked on the importation of nuclear-tipped missiles to Cuba. Obama has promised to meet face-to-face with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with no preconditions. Given his own sincerity and grasp of geopolitics, it seems reasonable to assume that the Iranian President will promptly invade Iraq.

Marilyn Monroe once figuratively prostrated herself before the President while singing "Happy Birthday" to him. Since she is no longer with us, Britney Spears will have to assume the duties during a future Obama birthday celebration. Elton John will write a song for her after she dies.

After the filibuster-proof Democratic Senate majority approves Obama’s proposal to raise the corporate income tax rate to 65%, the President responds to wholesale immigration of most of the Fortune 500 companies to Ireland by saying, "My minister always said all businessmen were S.O.B.’s, but I never believed it until now."

Yes, the similarities are myriad, and ultimately frightening. Given the way Kennedy’s Presidency ended, one would think Obama would shy away from such comparisons. This subject is far too distasteful to pursue, so we will leave it up to "The New Yorker" to cast any other roles.

After a week of watching Barack Obama struggle to come to grips with his Uncle Jeremiah’s endearing tendency to spew racist invective, Team Billary decided it was time to jump back into the fray. First Bill borrowed a page from the conservative talk radio play book by suggesting that the Junior Senator from Illinois hates America. Not to be outdone, Hillary then started reminiscing about her time under fire in Bosnia.

"I remember landing under sniper fire," she coolly recounted. "There was supposed to be some kind of s greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

It was an impressive tale, certainly proof that Hillary, unlike her callow opponent, has what it takes to command troops in time of war. The only problem with it was it wasn’t true. A CBS news report demonstrates a complete lack of danger at the airport, where Hillary, and her high-powered foreign policy team which included the comedian Sinbad, and Global Warming Cassandra Sheryl Crow, exchanges greetings and hugs with Bosnian children.

You can watch the video at http://youtube.com/watch?v=8BfNqhV5hg4

Although this might seem like an embarrassing moment for the scrappy underdog, it’s entirely possible that it may work out to her advantage. Hillary has repeatedly cited her Bosnian vacation as the kind of hands-on experience she will bring to the White House, where she will be ready to lead from Day One, unlike her opponent, who will be too busy reading poetry and composing the sort of flowery speeches which have rendered him unfit for higher office. Even though the junket turns out to have been more of a USO entertainment tour than a significant mission, her memory of how it went down is much more important that the actual circumstances.

Reading her description I was struck by its similarity to a scene from "A Clear and Present Danger." In the film, based on the Tom Clancy novel, Jack Ryan, played by Harrison Ford, risks life, limb and pension to stop an illegal and unsanctioned insertion of American forces into a South American country. Arriving at the airport, Ryan is told by a DEA official to keep moving, and keep his head down. "You don’t want to be a target," he is told.

Later on the motorcade is ambushed by drug lords, and most of the secret service agents and FBI officials are blown to bits by rocket launched grenades. Fortunately, Jack Ryan is on hand to orchestrate their escape. No doubt Hillary will be embellishing her recollections to include this firefight in future speeches.

Rather than being just the latest example of Team Billary’s, shall we say, awkward relationship with veracity, Hillary’s identifying with Jack Ryan might produce dividends. In Clancy’s long-winded, multi-volume biography of the intrepid CIA analyst, Ryan eventually ascends to the White House after a Japanese terrorist flies a hijacked 747 into the Capital Building during a State of the Union address, which manages to kill everyone in the chain of command other than Ryan.

Given the recent trajectory of her campaign, Hillary might need such a stroke of luck to take possession of her birthright. It’s possible that channeling Jack Ryan is an indication of her thinking on the matter. Still, if she turns into the kind of President Jack Ryan proved to be, American foreign policy, and the entire world will be in very good hands, indeed.