A reminder to those of you who are outraged that there is some criticism of the speech here tonight.

[NRaleighLiberal]

This is not Free Republic. This is not a predominantly conservative/republican hangout. This is not thought lockstep village.

I believe that there are many of us here who worked for Obama, strongly supported him, and continue to strongly support him. In many cases there was/is great alignment of many or most of his numerous positions, and in many other cases, some mismatches of his ideas and our ideals.

I suspect that most of us realize that Obama's campaign views on Afghanistan, largely played out in the speech, were not aligned with what we had hoped for. That includes me. A president is more than a single position, and we all drool and salivate over every single one of his positions, it is being disingenuous. Life is more complex than that, and we are all more complex than that.

So as I said in a previous post-speech analysis post, tonight's speech disappointed me. It is not a sudden get-on-the-bash-Obama bandwagon sort of thing. It is honest disappointment that he wants to send more troops in to what I perceive to be is a potentially endless quagmire. His mention of 911 early on in the speech made me cringe because of its frequent use of a fear tool by the Bush cabal. It wasn't a Bush speech, but there were echoes of the same approach. And that made me cringe as well, though I in now way think that Obama is not caught between a rock and a hard place.

Thankfully, we can criticize and differ with our president - it is healthy. Thankfully, we are not lockstep, fear driven Conservatives.

[cbdo2007]

1. I don't think we're outraged at the criticism....just confused by it.

Like many others have pointed out, I pretty much expected this from Obama when I voted for him. He seems to have clearly drawn out this exact strategy a few years ago, and it seems like it is many of his supporters here who are the ones disillusioned...not by him but by their own unfounded expectations.

Am I out of line here or did he mention a full pullout of Afghanistan at some point in the campaign or before or after? I would be happy to hold him to his word if he did say that, but this was all to be expected even if it's what some here don't like/want.

[WilliamPitt]

2. "outraged that there is some criticism"

Criticism? On DU?

I'm outraged.

Or something.

Wear a helmet.

It's DU.