QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 8:52 A.M. ET:  Let us not forget what this election is about.  It' a referendum on Barack Obama, a referendum he must lose. 

Why must he lose?  In part, it's because Obama has failed at the first responsibility of a president, that of commander-in-chief.  This is especially true in Obama's imposition of a cynical, defeatist deadline for withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan.  Tony Blankley has it nailed, in the Washington Times:

Petraeus has now made a play for Obama to reconsider the deadline. In a recent television interview, he said it is his duty to give the commander in chief his "best professional military advice" about whether July is too soon to remove troops. Separately, other policymakers have begun suggesting the July withdrawal may not be firm, injecting a hint of ambiguity into official statements. But in last week's Oval Office address, the president reconfirmed, precisely, that the withdrawal shall begin in July, as he ordered in his West Point policy announcement speech last year.

In the retirement speech of one of our greatest fighting generals, Gen. Stanley McChrystal -- whose self-inflicted career immolation still remains unexplained, but undoubtedly patriotically motivated -- we may have been given a first hint of his motivation when he observed: "Caution and cynicism are safe, but soldiers don't want to follow cautious cynics.

They follow leaders who believe enough to risk failure or disappointment for a worthy cause."

Amen, amen.  Soldiers followed George W. Bush.  They seem less enthusiastic to cheerlead for Barack Hussein Obama.

September 15, 2010