DO IT NOW! The war in Afghanistan has reached critical mass. General McChrystal says he needs forty thousand troops or we may lose. Obama says he’s “considering his options,” so intensely considering them that on Thursday he spent a full twenty-five minutes with General McChrystal. Wow, a whole twenty-five minutes. And remember, Obama removed General David McKiernan and put General McChrystal in, saying he was looking for “fresh thinking eyes.” Well, Mr. President, you’ve got your “fresh thinking eyes,” but the vision of those eyes is rotting while you consider your options. I know, I know, the Olympics, Letterman, and socializing our country are so much more pressing than the lives of American Soldiers, so I understand. So here Mr. President, I’m going to give you a quick refresher, wait “refresher” implies that you at one time knew how to “consider your options,” so I’ll give you a quick study, a cheat sheet really, on how to “consider your options.” Here it is Mr. President:

STEP ONE. List your options. I’ll give them to you so you can skip this step.

A. Pull out completely.
B. Scale back.
C. Keep the status quo.
D. Ramp up.

There, you have four options. I assigned a letter to each one so you can refer to them by letter rather than the actual title. This will make it simple for you. Now Mr. President, we’ll go to step two.

STEP TWO. What are the likely outcomes of each option? This will take some data and some analysis from military experts. Surprise! We have the most sophisticated advanced military in the world. The information regarding outcomes is at your finger tips. Don’t worry, you don’t even have to process the information. There’s a secret way to get the likely outcome of each option. Ready Mr. President? Ask the military experts this question: “What are the likely outcome of each option?” Step two – Done!

Now, we go to step three Mr. President.

STEP THREE. Pick the option that has the best outcome. This shouldn’t be a tough one, assuming of course that you want our military campaign and the loss of life we’ve already expended and will expend to be successful and worth while. At worst, you might have to ask an extremely difficult question, like, “which option has the best outcome?” I can make it even easier for you Mr. President. This step can be exercised by simply referring to the letters of the options in step one. That’s why I gave each option a letter, so it will be easier for you. For example, “I pick option B.” See, not that difficult. I’m sure you can do it. If you’re nervous about screwing up, use your teleprompter. What ever letter appears on your teleprompter, say it. If you don’t want to use the teleprompter, Gibbs can hold up a flash card. Just say the letter that appears on the flash card and step three is done.

Time for step four. A key step.

STEP FOUR. Execute the “letter,” I mean option, you have chosen. Now this one you’re definitely going to need a teleprompter because it’s going to require an entire sentence, not a long one, but still, a complete sentence. Here’s the sentence: “Do (insert letter).”

That’s it Mr. President. Four steps. All you have to do is listen, pick the best option (by saying the name of a letter) which will be easy because your military advisers will tell you which one to pick, and then say, “Do (insert the letter).”

Done. Four simple steps. Actually, you don’t even have to be there for the first two steps, maybe even the first three steps. Your military experts can tell you the letter you have to say and then all you have to do is insert it in a sentence. You didn’t read the stimulus bill, why get into the details of picking the best option in Afghanistan? Just tell them to give you a letter to say. Then you can go on Letterman or have a beer with a cop or fly to Copenhagen, whatever, while the military experts are doing steps one and two, even step three. See how easy this is Mr. President. Basically, all you’ve got to do is say a letter, one twenty sixth as easy as reciting the alphabet which I’m sure you know. . . right? How many states are there in the union Mr. President? (Fifty, not fifty seven.) O.K. Just in case, a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z.

But here’s the problem folks. President Obama lacks the courage to make a decision. He has brought politics into the equation and unfortunately, when he did that, brought politics in, he spoiled the soup, he created a situation where there is no “best option.” Of course there is a best option, likely General McChrsytal’s option, but uh oh, this option will anger the left and damn it all, the president brought the political ingredient into the mix which is akin to requiring a stove to make good sushi.

The bottom line is this: President Obama is displaying his lack of leadership ability, his cowardly character, his arrogance, and his indifference to what is truly important by claiming he is “considering his options.” How disgraceful, how pathetic. How disgraceful, how pathetic, you ask? Here’s how disgraceful and pathetic: A ten year old could make a call on Afghanistan given this cheat sheet, and I’m not employing a metaphor here.

But not to worry. There’s no Iran building nukes. There’s no Venezuela searching for uranium. There’s no North Korea testing nukes. There’s no Russia flexing it’s muscle. China will never go military on let’s see, Taiwan. And I’m sure the Taliban and al-Qaida, given their love for our President, have called a time out while he considers his options. So, nothing to worry about right. Wrong. Our President’s conduct in this matter is not only disgraceful and pathetic, it is dangerous, really dangerous.

And that’s my Reetzality for the Day.

Thanks for the read.

Brett Reetz