Voting Present

From the Wall Street Journal, via The Weekly Standard and to me via Hot Air.  Both the Weekly Standard and Hot Air rightly focus on this quote:

“People familiar with the internal debates say Mr. Obama rejected a strictly counter-terror approach during White House deliberations in early October. One official said Pentagon strategists were asked to draft brief written arguments making the best case for each strategy, but the strategists had difficulties writing out a credible case for the counter-terror approach — prompting members of Mr. Biden’s staff to step in and write the document themselves.”

But as I read the Journal piece, another passage caught my eye:

"Signs the White House is moving towards Gen. McChrystal's view of the conflict mounted Friday as the 28 North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense ministers endorsed the commander's counterinsurgency strategy and signaled they might be open to modestly increasing their military and civilian contributions to the war effort.

Gen. McChrystal made a surprise visit to the NATO meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia, to personally brief the defense chiefs on his strategic thinking. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters after the closed-door session that he had heard "broad support from all ministers of this overall counterinsurgency approach," though he cautioned that the NATO members hadn't taken a position on Gen. McChrystal's request for more than 40,000 new U.S. troops.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also publicly backed Gen. McChrystal, and people familiar with the matter said the endorsements from Mr. Brown and NATO were likely part of a coordinated effort to lay the groundwork for Mr. Obama's eventual decision.

"This may be part of an effort by the Obama administration to have the suggestion come from Europe first before the president makes a public commitment," said one person who has discussed Afghan strategy with senior U.S. officials."

Emphasis added.  Our president has once again chosen to outsource the hard work and hard decisions to someone else.  He voted present in the Illinois statehouse, he was barely present in the US Senate and, amazingly, he is continuing that trend in the desk that Harry S. Truman once designated as the place where the buck stops.  Now the president is in the process of passing on the devalued buck to Europe.  While the Journal piece provides us with encouragement that our nobel peace prize* winner is coming to take General McChrystal's view of the long war, it only provides further evidence that our president is an empty suit.

*never again to be capitalized here.