War cries from a defeated man

Ritual triumphalism about America's righteous mission in the closing sentences of his speech did not dispel the distinct impression during President Obama's 33-minute address to cadets at West Point Tuesday night that we were listening to a man defeated by the challenge of justifying the dispatch of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Contrary to the hackneyed references to his "soaring rhetoric", the speech was earth-bound and mechanically delivered. Obama didn't make the case and he pleased few. The liberals seethed as they heard him say that it is "in our vital national interest" to send 30,000 more troops to a mission they regard as doomed from the get go. The cheers of the right at the news of the deployment died in their throats as they heard his next line, "After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home." No mature American, seasoned in the ineradicable graft flourishing down the decades in every major American city, believes a pledge that corruption will be banished from Afghanistan in a year and a half, or that Karzai has any credibility as the wielder of the cleansing broom.