From the transcript of Fox News Special Report, September 21, 2009 (video not available):
Bret Baier:
What about Afghanistan and the decision that lies ahead for the president? Let's bring in our panel, Fred Barnes, Executive Editor of "The Weekly Standard," Mara Liasson, national political correspondent of National Public Radio, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer — Charles?
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, I think what's really important here are two dates. The first is August 30. That's when the McChrystal report was sent to Washington. That is three weeks ago. Obama has not had single meeting since then.
He says he hasn't reached a conclusion, I suppose because he is spending all his time preparing for Letterman and speeches to schoolchildren to focus on a war in which our soldiers are in the field getting shot at and, as the president himself is saying, without a strategy.
Now, the other date is the 27th of March, when Obama gave a speech in the White House flanked by his Secretaries of Defense and State, in which he said, and I will read you this, because it is as if it never happened, "Today I'm announcing a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan."
So we for six months have been living under the new Obama strategy, of which he says today we have none. And his next sentence is, again in March, "This marks the conclusion of a careful policy review," not the beginning, the end of the policy review.
So it has been his policy, and now he tells us we don't have a cart and we don't have a horse.
What's happening here is he announced the strategy of counterinsurgency in March. He said at the time that we cannot afford an Afghanistan that slides into chaos. He said "My message to the terrorists who oppose us, we will defeat you," And now he's not sure he wants to defeat them.
