The Weight of War Is Showing on Obama

Washington Post: From Fort Hood to Afghanistan, Times are Trying for the Country's Visibly Thinner Commander in Chief

(Washington Post)  This story was written by Joel Achenbach.

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War and tragedy are putting President Obama through the most wrenching period of his young administration. Visibly thinner, admittedly skipping meals, he is learning every day the challenges of a wartime presidency. Health-care reform, climate-change legislation, the broken economy -- all are cerebral exercises compared with the grim responsibility of being the commander in chief.

Two weeks ago, Obama flew to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for a surprise middle-of-the-night salute to the fallen as their bodies were unloaded from a military transport plane. He met with grieving families.

Then, last week, a gunman went on a rampage at Fort Hood, and Obama made his first trip as president to visit wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Tuesday he flew to Texas to speak at the memorial service. More families. More hurt soldiers. More grief.

Wednesday the president laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns and walked the grounds at Arlington National Cemetery, talking to families who were there to visit loved ones who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"There are many honors and responsibilities that come with this job. But none is more profound than serving as commander in chief," Obama said in a speech in the cemetery's auditorium. He then mentioned the title of commander in chief a second time, and a third ("As long as I am commander in chief . . .").

Then he returned to the White House, to the Situation Room, for another Afghanistan war council, another session to contemplate sending more young men and women to war.

"It looks to me from the outside that the reality of being a wartime president is beginning to sink in," said Eliot Cohen, a former Bush official and a military historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

"From mid-September on, there's been something of an effort by the White House to relaunch President Obama as commander in chief," said Peter Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke who worked on the National Security Council in the Clinton and Bush administrations. He said new presidents often struggle with this part of their job.

"It really involves the whole person, not just the mind," Feaver said. "It's a very emotional role. Emotional in a positive sense. You have to order men and women to risk their lives. That requires a moral courage, an emotional stability. It's very different from a policy wonk job."

Obama has often been described as possessing the political magic of John F. Kennedy, but his tenure so far has similarities to that of Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson: an ambitious domestic agenda built around a more vigorous federal government, paired with an increasingly thorny overseas war. Making things even more complicated, if Obama sends significantly more troops to Afghanistan, the sworn political enemies of his domestic policies could become his critical allies as he tries to sell his war plans to a skeptical nation.

CBSNews.com Special Coverage: Afghanistan

"With this decision, he's really going to own this war, and he's going to be sending young men and women to their deaths. And when that realization sets in, it's a very grim thing. He may have known it intellectually before, but what I think is happening is he's learning it viscerally," Cohen said.

No military résumé

As Obama noted in his campaign, he grew up listening to his grandfather talk about fighting in Europe in World War II, but he never served in the military. He is of a generation whose college kids generally didn't go off to war.

Critics of the president have said he doesn't understand the language of warriors and too often speaks of military sacrifice rather than military victory. But Obama has tried to head off that kind of criticism by stocking his administration with retired military brass. His national security adviser is a retired general; so are his secretary of veterans affairs and his ambassador to Afghanistan. His intelligence chief is a retired admiral.

Obama has had multiple chances in recent days to polish the kind of rhetoric that goes with being a wartime leader. His remarks at Fort Hood on Tuesday were filled with references to courage, valor, fighting. He disagreed that the Greatest Generation has come and gone: "We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes."

He opposed the Iraq war early and consistently and campaigned on a promise to end it. He also vowed to put new effort into the war in Afghanistan, the training ground of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists. This spring, his administration conducted a review of Afghanistan policy and announced that 21,000 additional troops would be sent to that war zone. The president showed little sign that the decision weighed on his mind or provoked much internal White House debate.

Then Afghanistan degenerated. A national election was shot through with fraud. Casualties spiked. Body bags began arriving home by the dozen.

A new direction

Now Obama is crafting a new strategy, weighing four different options, according to the White House press secretary. Administration leaks point to a considerable increase in the number of troops as part of a broader strategic change.

"He's stepping up to the problem, and he's exercising a degree of skepticism and analytical depth that his predecessor didn't appear to engage in," said Richard Kohn, a professor of military history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Wrong, Cohen said: Obama's dithering.

"I don't yet have the sense that he's willing to commit that much of his political energy to this, and yet if he doesn't, I do think there's a serious risk of failure," Cohen said.

No decision by Obama will escape condemnation from those who think they know a better way. Hawks will call him a compromiser with no stomach for the fight; doves will say that, having campaigned against one war, he is escalating another.

But even those who disagree with the president's policies will recognize him as a man who thinks through his decisions, reads his briefing papers and studies the lessons of history. Wednesday, before he left Arlington, Obama paused to read the most powerful texts imaginable, the names on grave markers. He stopped at the grave of Ross McGinnis, a Medal of Honor recipient. Born in Pennsylvania, McGinnis, 19, wound up in Iraq as a machine gunner, 1st Platoon, C Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment. An insurgent threw a hand grenade into his Humvee. He threw his body on it, absorbing the explosion. His four platoon mates survived.

Obama bent over McGinnis's grave, but the traveling press pool could not tell what the president was doing, much less what he was thinking.

Staff writer Greg Jaffe contributed to this report.

[love2ridend]

If he always loved his country why did he not raise his right had and enlist in the military. Just another coward

[maxcoffee-2009]

It seems that there are some people out there that don?t seem to care about anything other than the words Republican and Democrat. All this talk of? this makes America look weak and he can?t handle this or that. I would think that this kind of ridiculous hatred is what is really making America look weak. I would think; and I don?t claim to be an expert, that terrorists would want us to be arguing and fighting with each other over things we seem to be. It makes us look weak.

[prairiefox]

And he is this way from the war?? Yhe only decision he has made is not to make a decision! I other words he is a spectator just like the rest of us!

[sean70x]

Kabul must inflict rebel casualties for the country. Islamabad efficiently eliminated them from a number of districts. NATO receives casualties and kills innocent Afghanis. Tactics are critical. Obama should not impose America ineptitude in the region. Waziristan is the significant target. Pakistan could be given the military hardware including satellite technology required for defeating the rebel stronghold.

[wyodutch]

"....you gotta love how the libs divert attention away from Obama by Blaming Bush to cover up Obama's incompetance."
.
My God man... do you honestly believe there is one iota difference between Bush and Obama... between Bush and Clinton... between Clinton and Bush the Elder? Do you really thin there are fundamental differences between the GOP Liars Club and the Democrats Thieves Club?
.
We had the opportunity to elect a man who wasn't simply another member of the Revolving Door Society... That man was Ron Paul. Our failure to make that change at this critical time will haunt us for decades to come.

[PaGuy1960]

no actaully I beleive they're all the same.. And I agree that we need a NEW party.

[PaGuy1960]

you gotta love how the libs divert attention away from Obama by Blaming Bush to cover up Obama's incompetance.

[PaGuy1960]

well what a surprise. Obama thought he was gonna walz in here and change the world. But now after getting the real intel he realizes that all his campaighn promises were unattainable. Welcome to the real world.

[louiville35]

You know there is a very famous saying by another Democrat President he should head and that is "If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen".

[chitown639]

Obama losing weight over the stress and burden of being a wartime president......Bush never miss a wink of sleep or lost any weight worrying because he just didn't care.

[Thalia-9]

chitown, it's no longer Bush's watch...let it go before you give yourself a stroke...otherwise you'll be one of those who still lives within the day of The Bay of Pigs and Vietnam...good grief...

[50BMS13]

Thalia-9
Good post LOL

[BlaksRLo]

by moonbeam91 November 12, 2009 4:14 PM EST
Maybe all of his 'vacation' traveling is catching-up on him. & Please don't tell me he reads so much or thinks things through. He's doing what he has always done. Travel a lot, talk a lot, do 'jack-nothing' then take what ever credit he can for whatever his cronies have done. also, is it Ramadam yet?


You don't know jack about anything that ANYONE has done. You are a completely ignorant ranting child with nothing better to do than play wiht your daddy's computer. Go get an education you stupid twit.

[prairiefox]

Tell me what he has done to make him so great!
I am waiting!!!!!!!!

[Zebiggie]

Why do some people have to comment on anything written here? Can't you for once put away your ugliness and your redneck-dness and say something nice about our president? He is undoubtedly THE GREATEST PRESIDENT US WILL EVER SEE!

[starleo146]

He is the most honest and caring man about his country and I am proud of him.If the republicans give it up to him they will have to admit they lost the election and they refuse to do that. I pray we as Americans see through there schemes and volatile crowd gatherings, I pity Florida they are gathering now as we speak and will keep it up till the election in hopes to beat everyone in 2010. God help us I say. You fooled us once shame on you, you fool me twice shame on me, never will I vote republican again there dirty politics just turn my stomach

[Thalia-9]

LOLOL...silly, silly praise-lovers...if he said 'jump off the bridge' would you have the common sense to ask 'how high is the bridge?'...nope...you'd just drink the koolade and jump - no research, just sheep...good luck with that

[prairiefox]

A consistent liar???????? and you call that as honist????
You must have studied under Obama to have that distorted view!

[moonbeam91]

Maybe all of his 'vacation' traveling is catching-up on him. & Please don't tell me he reads so much or thinks things through. He's doing what he has always done. Travel a lot, talk a lot, do 'jack-nothing' then take what ever credit he can for whatever his cronies have done. also, is it Ramadam yet?

[moonbeam91]

Maybe all of his 'vacation' traveling is catching-up on him. & Please don't tell me he reads so much or thinks things through. He's doing what he has always done. Travel a lot, talk a lot, do 'jack-nothing' then take what ever credit he can for whatever his cronies have done.

[ubrew12]

Obama has done what the right has wanted on too many issues:
-WallStreet bailout
-Healthcare reform (yes, that puny bill that can't even pass the Senate is hardly the reform that's needed)
-Response to the Great Recession (yes: most economists say he needed a stimulus package TWICE the size of the one he passed to keep unemployment from hitting 10%)

And how has the American right responded? By calling him a Muslim terrorist and his staff filled with communists. By blaming him for the Great Recession and the massive debt. Has it occured to him that doing what the American right wants gets him absolutely nothing in return?

Get out of Afghanistan. If the American right doesn't like it... GOOD. Let them put together a volunteer army to fight on Afghan soil if they are so eager to defend 'democracy', with five-deferment Cheney at the lead. They are hypocrits and worse.

Obama, channelling Clinton may not want to realize the obvious, but what the right has engaged the left into, in this country, is a WAR. They see it as war, where lying, cheating, stealing, and torturing are OK as long as they bring victory. Obama will never get any thanks from the American right for steering to the center: they are at WAR, and war brooks no quarter. War sees accomodation as weakness: reason to redouble one's efforts at destroying the opposition.

The right needs to be defeated. We THOUGHT we'd already done that on election day, but I guess not... I should have realized that democracy in America was already meaningless.

[Thalia-9]

by ubrew12 November 12, 2009 3:11 PM EST

Get out of Afghanistan. If the American right doesn't like it... GOOD. Let them put together a volunteer army to fight on Afghan soil if they are so eager to defend 'democracy', with five-deferment Cheney at the lead. They are hypocrits and worse.

Yeah...cause he said he'd pull troops within 10 months yet is pulling how many?...none... and adding how many more to Afghanistan??? Hmmm...more double talking fence walking all for the sake of getting elected...nice.

[element51]

It is so good to have a president who is working every day to try to solve the country's problems. It is apparent by looking at him that the job is taking a toll on his health. And never before has a president had to suffer the insults leveled against him like this president. Yes, people made remarks about Bush but they were not meant to try to get him to fail. Most people, even the democrats, wanted Bush to do well. He didn't. But the attacks by Limbaugh, "I want him to fail" and Hannity and Beck and Ingram are vicious, mean and petty and clearly meant to turn the public against the President. Just the other day I had a woman tell me that we should get rid of him. When I asked her why she said because he is a socialist and a muslim. I asked her what a socialist was and she couldn't tell me. Said she didn't know. I asked her why she believed the president was a socialist since she didn't know what that was and she said, "because THEY said so." Asked her who "they" were and she didn't know. These are the kind of morons who believe everything the hear on republican talk radio. In just one year this President has spent more days working than Bush did in eight years. We should be glad we have him and not another bonehead republican. BTW, I heard a couple of days ago that Huckabee is the front runner for the nomination in 2012. Wouldn't he and Palin make a great ticket?

[jgg000015]

he's starting to look like morgan freeman

[legionofwolves]

Obama is the first pres. and only to visit section 60(I think), which is the Iraq War section of arlington Cem. Neither one of the Bush' went, ever.

[Thalia-9]

you don't know that...just because it may be a 'private' issue for any of our Pessidents who have visit our fallen at Arlington doesn't make it 'news'...it would be done for the self rather than a photo op - not sayin' BO wasn't there for the right reasons, just sayin' some things are better taken in on a private level...and those past President's who have, did it w/ the intention of no press...Arlington has hours of operation to the public...and that includes the press

[excop1949]

The Weight of War Is Showing on Obama

YOU'RE NOT IN CHICAGO ANYMORE, BARRY....

[rightbehind]

Having those worthless republicrats around doesn't help a President who's trying to do the right thing. Looking forward to sending more of them packing hoping they get their worst fear. They worry about their own skin instead of the people who put them in office. You can almost see the stench rising from them

[skyk-2009]

It's great to have a President that cares, especially after the last one. No American should ever be asked to give up their lives in Combat UNLESS that is the ONLY and LAST option.