One consideration helping Obama is that he does not have a Senator Obama in the Senate planning to run for the presidency by rejecting any notion of “common purpose” in Afghanistan and demagoguing both the surge and Gen. Petraeus’s efforts. (He sermonized, for example, during the Iraq surge hearings and did not even ask a single question.) Once again, how eerie to see Obama playing the role of President Bush to the doubting likes of a Senator Obama—reminiscent of the once-bad Guantanamo, tribunals, renditions, Predators, wiretaps, intercepts, and Iraq all suddenly becoming absolutely necessary, all predicated on whether one is running for office and wanting the powers that be to look bad—or being in office and vested in wanting the powers that be to look good.