Presidential Responsibilities
140 confirmed active duty suicides in ten months, more than all of last year.
Related, I think, approval for the war in Afghanistan is at an all time low. My one thought on Afghanistan is a thought about the thought process and assumptions that you will find in your, for instance Charles Krauthammers and Dick Cheneys. The lowering approval ratings are themselves an indictment on President Obama, who has forfeited his presidential responsibility in keeping the approval ratings for these military expeditions high and rallying the nation around them. The American popular approval rating for Harmid Karzai is particularly striking — just 26 percent think he and his government is a “reliable partner”. It is almost as if Americans didn’t really believe that last election had any legitimacy to it, and we see Obama compound the problem in his statements about Karzai. This is something that Bush would not have allowed to happen, and a popular thought he would have squelched in gaining currency — “Our Partners in Peace” — and another sign that Obama is falling down on the job.