A roundup of some reaction to the president's speech. This morning, we'll talk about the gooid, the bad, and the silly.... BTW: did anybody do a count of how many times he used the word "I"?

From Powerline:

Consistent with slick salesmanship - as well as the president's character - the speech was quite self-referential. Providing a potted history of our military efforts in the war on terrorism, Obama took shots at his predecessor and attempted to cast himself as the hero throughout. Thus, he patted himself on the back for opposing the war in Iraq, on which he blamed the current difficulties in Afghanistan.

Obama also patted himself on the back for bringing the war in Iraq to a "responsible end." But he failed to mention the surge in Iraq, which was instrumental in turning the tide to the point that it became possible to speak of a responsible end.

Peters Brookes at NRO:

Despite the rhetorical flourishes, it's pretty clear President Obama has one foot out the door on Afghanistan. His heart just isn't in it. Unfortunately, I won't be the only one to notice that, either here — or overseas. 

He's basically given our troop plus-up as little as a year — by the time they get there in the summer of 2010 - before he starts to drawdown U.S. forces in mid-2011. >  

John Dickerson at Slate

Since his inauguration, Barack Obama has tripled the number of troops fighting in Afghanistan. After announcing the latest surge of 30,000 new soldiers in a speech at West Point, it is clear that he is a president actively prosecuting a war, not merely tending to one that was left to him.  The rest, though, is a bit blurry. According to his speech, Obama is escalating while retreating, adding more troops while also setting a date for their departure. Obama said he was putting pressure on the Afghan government, but he didn't suggest how. Some of the blurring was by design. He smudged the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, explaining that while he was sending troops to Afghanistan, the struggle was now more regional than it was when the war started eight years ago.

,Victor Davis Hanson, who had much the same reaction that I did:That was such a strange speech. Deploring partisanship while serially trashing Bush at each new talking point. Sending more troops, but talking more about when they will come home rather than what they will do to the enemy. There was nothing much new in the speech, yet apparently it took the president months to decide whether even to give it. Ostensibly the talk was to be on Afghanistan; instead, the second half mostly consisted of the usual hope-and-change platitudes. Still, the president, to his credit, is trying to give the best picture of the Afghanistan war...