Fool you once...

It's not a $30 billion, 30,000-soldier surge-- it's an exit plan! That's how President Obama tried to soften the hard truth last night in his speech on accelerating the war in Afghanistan. Why? Because he probably assumes, like Jack Nicholson would say, that we can't handle the truth! That's what poll-iticians do: they read polls that tell them, for example, that most Americans have lost the stomach for war, so when they decide to do the exact opposite and accelerate that war, well, they have to spin it somehow and tell us that deep down, they're really giving us what we want-- they promise!
Never mind another hard truth-- that when you fight a war, the last thing you want to do is give your enemy a timetable, which just makes them run out the clock until you "exit", at which point they can simply resume their evil ways.
Ralph Peters of the New York Post, in his heated but honest style, nails it.

Just plain nuts: That's the only possible characterization for last night's presidential declaration of surrender in advance of a renewed campaign in Afghanistan.
President Obama will send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan -- but he'll "begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011." Then why send them?
If you're going to tell the Taliban to be patient because we're leaving, what's the point in upping the blood ante? For what will come down to a single year by the time the troops hit the ground?
Does Obama really expect to achieve in one year what we haven't been able to do in more than eight?
Adding to the confusion, Obama qualified his timeline by insisting that "we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground."
If conditions of the ground are key, why announce a pullout date?
And what did this "new strategy" come down to, otherwise? More of the same, but more: More troops, more civilians, more partnership.
Well, the troops will go, the civilians won't -- and the partnerships are a fantasy.
Our president is setting up our military to fail -- but he'll be able to claim that he gave the generals what they wanted. Failure will be their fault.
He's covering his strong-on-security flank, even as he plays to our white-flag wavers.