My opinion of Hawvud has never been too high, but it goes down every day because of those D.C. chumps who think it’s their dead God’s gift to intellectual humanity.

The President rejected the “minimalist” approach advocated by some in his administration. Bill Gertz of The Washington Times has the scoop

According to two U.S. government sources close to the issue, senior policymakers were divided over how comprehensive to make the strategy, involving an initial boost of 17,000 U.S. troops.

On the one side were Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Deputy Secretary of State James B. Steinberg, who argued in closed-door meetings for a minimal strategy of stabilizing Afghanistan that one source described as a “lowest common denominator” approach.

The goal of these advocates was to limit civilian and other nonmilitary efforts in Afghanistan and focus on a main military objective of denying safe haven to the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists.

The other side of the debate was led by Richard C. Holbrooke, the special envoy for the region, who along with U.S. Central Command leader Gen. David H. Petraeus and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton fought for a major nation-building effort.

The Holbrooke-Petraeus-Clinton faction, according to the sources, prevailed. The result is expected to be a major, long-term military and civilian program to reinvent Afghanistan from one of the most backward, least developed nations to a relatively prosperous democratic state.

It is absolutely predictable that our dope of a vice president was on the wrong side of the issue. A few years ago his solution for Iraq was to split it into three countries, a plan that had the dubious distinction of being opposed by virtually everybody in Iraq.

I feel so much better……….