OK I admit it.

I cut and pasted this post from Huffington

I have been critical of Obama recently on several issues: the capitulation to the Big Banks, the coziness with BP, aquiescence to AIPAC, and yesterday for weak leadership in Afghanistan. All of a sudden, I think, this may be the moment for a cool reappraisal.

Remembering that all his problems were more or less inherited from the most inept and criminal administration in the nation's history and that he was faced on every side by entrenched adversaries, with the country engaged in two wars and in the midst of an economic crisis more severe than anyone wants to admit. Remember that politicians are not like other people, and that when you think you know what they're trying to do, you may be kidding yourself. Maybe the only way not to get eaten alive was to assume this iron fist in a velvet glove persona, to become the Machiavellian prince, who puts his arm around his adversaries' shoulders while he slips the vice over their gonads, and starts to turn the screw. Worked with health care, maybe working with BP and Israel, may even work with GS. Rememder the Prince does not seek resplendent triumphs, he converts a string of likely setbacks into a string small wins, and ends up way ahead.

Re Afghanistan: to "surrender" (order withdrawals) during his first year in office would have hurt him with a lot of right wingers, military Moms and Dads, and a couple powerful lobbies, so instead he appproves a surge, but at the same time shifts strategies to try to protect the lives of our young men. In his disdain for Karzai, you get a glimpse of his true feelings. A year later Karzai is unraveling, the generals are collapsing at hearings and giving interviews in Rolling Stone Magazine. The assessment is widely accepted that the war is unwinnable. Win, Win, Win. To complete this tour de force with a sardonic gesture, I hope he retains the mercenaries till the end and employs them in a rear guard action as he withdraws the troops