The President has turned the art of presidential speech making into the art of giving a deposition. You have to look close to catch the nuance and the legal loopholes
1. The president said he is committed to Afghanistan. Except he made no mention of defeating the Taliban. How can that be? Does he honestly think we can end the al Qaeda threat in South Asia without defeating the Taliban? And why does he keep mentioning the timeline for withdrawal if he is committed to victory no matter what? No one believes Afghanistan will be ready for the kind of transition that just took place in Iraq by 2011. His commitment is rife with caveats and vague. It could mean he will stick it out. It could also mean he will come up with some kind of bogus plan to deal with al Qaeda that justifies cutting and running before finishing the job in Afghanistan.
2. The president said we have entered a new phase in Iraq. But he did not specify what that means. Everyone expects a new Iraqi government to ask the troops to stay beyond 2011. It is not clear whether the president would do that or just cut and run and say “mission accomplished.”
3. The president promised us the finest military in the world. He never said, however, what that meant. He did blame the poor economy on spending money to protect the nation (bogus) and the only “important” defense spending he talked about was about taking care of veterans, which is important, but not defense spending. Thus, he made no real commitment to defense. The “finest military in the world” could mean what ever he wants it to mean and that could mean a really second-rate military that he just calls the finest in the world.
The president in fact managed to make an entire speech without one concrete commitment to securing the freedom, peace, and security of the American people.
He did, however, promise to make the economy his most “urgent” task (as if he can just forget about national security now). Given what he has achieved with the economy so far…we should probably be afraid, very afraid.