Tom Engelhardt: The Militarized Surrealism of Barack Obama

Its already gone, having barely outlasted its moment - just long enough for the media to suggest that no one thought it added up to much. Okay, it was a little more than the military wanted, something less than Joe Biden would have liked, not enough for the growing crew of anti-war congressional types, but way too much for John McCain, Lindsay Graham & Co: I'm talking about the 13 minutes of remarks on the way forward in Afghanistan, that Obama delivered in the East Room of the White House two Wednesday nights ago. Tell me you weren't holding your breath, wondering whether the 33,000 surge troops he ordered into Afghanistan as 2009 ended would be removed in a 12 month, 14 month, or 18 month span. Tell me you weren't gripped with anxiety about whether 3,000 5,000 10,000 or 15,000 American soldiers would come out this year, leaving either 95,000, 93,000, 88,000 or 83,000 behind! You weren't? Well, if so, you were in good company. Billed as the beginning of the end of the Afghan War, it should have been big, and it couldn't have been smaller. The patented Obama words were meant to soar, starting with the George W. Bush-style invocation of 9/11 and ending with the usual copious blessings upon this country and our military, but on the evidence, they couldn't have fallen flatter. I doubt that I was alone in thinking that it was like Ronald Reagan on an unimaginably bad day in an ad captioned "It's never going to be morning again in America." If you clicked Obama off that night, or let the event slide instantly into your mental trash can. I don't blame you. Still, the president's Afghan remarks shouldn't be sent down the memory hole quite so quickly! For one thing, while the mainstream media's pundits and talking heads are always raring to discuss his policy remarks, the words that frame them are generally ignored - and yet the discomfort of the moment can't be separated from them. So start with this: Whether by inclination, political calculation, or some mix of the two, our president has become a rhetorical idolator!