DICK MORRIS: Obama Channels Bush
OBAMA CHANNELS BUSH
By Dick Morris And Eileen McGann 12.1.2009
Tonight we watched Obama address the cadets of West Point and, over their shoulder, the American people. I kept asking myself: if I were in the audience did I hear anything worth risking my life for?
There is a lot in Afghanistan worth risking one’s life for, but Obama sure didn’t summon it.
Watching President Obama address the nation, the right probably recognized the incongruity of sending additional troops on a difficult mission and setting, at the same time, a very short timetable for their withdrawal. The right doubtless wondered why the Taliban won’t just wait Obama out and move in after he leaves.
But the political cost of this speech will not come on the right. Obama will get the support of everyone who won’t ever vote for him. But it is with his base on the left that he will be in trouble.
His volunteers, his backers, his donors have to have watched that speech and asked themselves “why did we win the election?” Obama sounded just like Bush. More articulate, perhaps, but substantively precisely the same.
His decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, an odd move for a peace candidate, his failure to close Guantanamo, our continued military presence in Iraq, and his failure to act on liberal priorities like gays in the military and immigration reform, are all sapping his support from those who voted for him.
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