Andrew Sullivan Weighs In

On feeling melancholy about the President's speech.

The final piece of the puzzle strikes me as this: the big ramp up in CIA activity in Pakistan. This is the second channel, the one Obama barely mentioned last night. It may be the more important one. My sense is that Obama wants to get bin Laden. Well, of course he does. Which president wouldn't? But the international and domestic impact of such a coup is hard to overstate and Obama's sense of how it would transform him and the entire dynamic of the terror war is typically cunning. I see the Afghan effort as one last chance to get al Qaeda's leadership, to bring justice to the 9/11 perpetrators, while hoping, in the medium term, to tamp down the raw civilizational conflict that empowers them.

As always with Obama, look a little deeper. He has made the very best of a very bad situation. And he is playing a long game for a win or a necessary withdrawal or both. I retain all my doubts; but I give him and Gates and McChrystal and Clinton and the troops all my support for the two years ahead. This much he and they deserve.

One more try, guys.

Really? This is the big ole ace in the hole? Ramping up CIA activity to get Bin Laden? When did we ramp down trying to get Bin Laden? This is Spinal Tap going to 11. Sullivan is obviously delusional. Look a little deeper? What the hell does that mean? You could say that about Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo and it wouldn't make it Days of Heaven (mark that as the two most inappropriate and random movie references of all time).