The money line: “When so many other institutions seem to be shirking their responsibilities, you’ve embraced your responsibilities.” When I heard about his surprise visit, I thought he must have jetted out there to do some morale-boosting after yesterday’s brutal Wikileaks document spill about what a low-rent kleptocracy Afghanistan has become. But that was silly of me: For one thing, we all knew that already, and for another, presidential trips take longer to arrange than a day or two. In fact, according to a White House aide, this one’s been in the works for more than a month. Between then and now, we’ve had Karzai call for Petraeus to abandon his battle plan and learned that peace talks were being carried on with a Taliban impostor. So, yeah, the troops probably can use a little pep talk. Especially since next month’s Pentagon strategy review is almost certain to show less progress than hoped for when Obama first ordered the surge a year ago. If I had to bet, I’d bet that was the real impetus for this trip, to show a little symbolic commitment to the mission ahead of some discouraging news.
Believe it or not, he didn’t meet with Karzai while he was there. Supposedly that was due to bad weather, but … c’mon. Exit question: Did this have anything to do with The One’s decision to make today the day for a long journey away from the U.S.?
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