Speech Was Obama's 'Mission Accomplished'

All he needed was a flight suit
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 23, 2011 6:55 AM CDT
Speech Was Obama's 'Mission Accomplished'
President Barack Obama delivers a televised address from the East Room of the White House on June 22, 2011.   (Getty Images)

He may not have unfurled a banner or donned a flight suit, “but make no mistake: President Obama gave his own version of a ‘mission accomplished’ speech last night,” writes Dana Milbank of the Washington Post. Last night the president declared—“perhaps prematurely”—that the Afghanistan surge had been successful, and that he would “drawdown from a position of strength,” a line eerily reminiscent of George W. Bush’s “return on success.”

Oh sure, Obama was characteristically tempered, warning of the “huge challenges” ahead. But there was plenty of happy talk to regret if things start going sour. Which, given reports like this one, is a distinct possibility. Obama’s staffers were especially brash, boasting to reporters that there hasn’t been a terrorist threat from Afghanistan in seven or eight years. In that case, Milbank asks, “Why did Obama sends tens of thousands of additional troops … and why is he leaving most of them there?” (More Senate Foreign Relations Committee stories.)

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