Not a War President Yet

President Obama may know that we are at war and that he is our president, but he doesn't really seem to connect the two threads into accepting responsibility for victory or defeat. He may not think of himself as a war president, but history will judge him on how he fights the wars that America wages while he is the commander in chief.


Jed Babbin, writing about Woodward's new book, states:

What Woodward's book reveals is a president whose sole concern -- regardless of the issue -- is how it will affect his domestic political position.

That's been my worry. Our military may win, anyway, in the theaters of war they are fighting, but it sure would be nice to trust that our president will go for the win when the chips are down rather than merely refuse to lose a war our military is winning while he is off doing something else more important to him. I fear that President Obama just doesn't really feel, deep down, that he is leading a nation at war; and he doesn't feel that winning in Afghanistan is important.

Oh, and one more thing. An "exit strategy" is not the same thing as "victory." Indeed, it isn't even a "strategy."