If Obama does not put a decisive end to McChrystal's politicking, and does not remonstrate with Rasmussen, we can conclude that the pundits are right. - If so, and if the troop increase is substantial-even though it will probably be portrayed as mostly for training of the (barely existent) Afghan army-disaster looms both in Afghanistan and in the corridors of power in Washington. --- The dangerous impression would persist that, when the chips were down, Obama is no Jack Kennedy, nor Harry Truman, both of whom had the guts to face down the Pentagon by rebuffing military demands for wider war. - - It would be difficult indeed to write a Profile in Courage for one who bowed as low to his recalcitrant, myopic generals, as he did, de rigueur, to the Japanese emperor last Saturday. -- If Obama does not put a decisive end to McChrystal's politicking, and does not remonstrate with Rasmussen, we can conclude that the pundits are right. - If so, and if the troop increase is substantial-even though it will probably be portrayed as mostly for training of the (barely existent) Afghan army-disaster looms both in Afghanistan and in the corridors of power in Washington. --- The dangerous impression would persist that, when the chips were down, Obama is no Jack Kennedy, nor Harry Truman, both of whom had the guts to face down the Pentagon by rebuffing military demands for wider war. - It would be difficult indeed to write a Profile in Courage for one who bowed as low to his recalcitrant, myopic generals, as he did, de rigueur, to the Japanese emperor last Saturday. -- If Obama does bow to the generals, "transfer cases" (the euphemism the Washington Post uses for coffins carrying soldiers' remains) will continue to arrive in Delaware-and in greater numbers. - By expanding the war in Afghanistan, Obama would let down these dead soldiers and their grieving families. Euphemism will be no help at all. And it will be a daunting challenge, to even the most soaring rhetoric, to make a persuasive case that these dead have not died in vain. --- The supreme irony would remain; namely, that the Republicans would continue to batter Obama, whatever he does regarding a war that their erstwhile hero George W. Bush started but could not finish. -- Already, many demoralized Democrats are looking fearfully toward Election 2010 and then Election 2012 when the Republicans could attribute the continuing quagmire in Afghanistan to Obama's "indecision," and to cite this as proof that he does not deserve a second term. -- At that point I can visualize a GOP ticket headed by Petraeus and Gates and a platform advocating, as McArthur did so many years ago, for wider war. --- Now is the time for President Obama to stop this latest March of Folly. Now.