He sees a window and he's already running.  That's what his risible demagoguery about Obama supposedly destroying churches signifies.  http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=473430

Gingrich is not just a cunning manipulator, he's brainy as well (and he wants to believe he also understands stupid people).  A self-aggrandizing dope like McCain (or Jindal) can't go toe-to-toe with Obama, Palin's a joke, and Romney may have a weakness in 2012 in that the economy will probably be doing pretty well.  Gingrich, though, can imagine himself getting past that crowd and winning a Presidential debate against Obama -- he wants contributors to view him early as a smart, credible guy, who can also excite the party's many dolts.   (BTW, Isn't he replacing Palin at some fund-raiser?)

Tossing out this laced meat to the idiotic, Talibangelical base is a step for him toward what must be a Southern Strategy (southern and rural).  He is reminding the intellectually challenged that they should regard him as a like-minded bumpkin himself, but a successsful one and their ally and protector.  Stupid people still prefer Palin, though.  But if can bypass her, who but Gingrich is going to protect them from Obama's black helicopters, once Obama gets rid of all their churches and betrays Israel?  Hell, Obama's middle name is actually Hussein, did you hear?!

So I'm in one of the further flung ex-USSR republics for a couple of weeks and I occasionally ask locals what they know or think about Obama.  The economic elites are similar to anywhere else, but the average Joe here knows next to nothing.  That Obama is some kind of reformer, for example, or that he is battling the world financial crisis, they don't know.

A conversation with a driver in his Chevrolet yesterday was typical.  This driver is a pretty smart and polished fellow, and he knew two things exactly:  (1) Barack Obama is black, and (2) he's got some kind of Muslim lineage.  I thought about this and told him I had a third thing he could learn:  (3) Obama had caused the firing over the weekend of the CEO of my friend's car manufacturer!  He was surprised to hear it, too! :)

At first blush, the new "targeted" strategy sounds like warmed over let's-send-more-troops, but actually the idea of a limited strategy to interdict Al Qaeda seems encouraging.  The second part of the President's quote supports that interpretation, but the first part suggests broad escalation.  "The world cannot afford the price that will come due if Afghanistan slides back into chaose or al Qaeda operates unchecked..." 

"Back" into chaos?  

The Afghan government controls little of the country. http://www.afghanconflictmonitor.org/2008/03/us-director-of.html  This chart shows Taliaban holding 11% of the country, and "local control" (warlords, etc.) estimated at 58%:  http://hsrp.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/03/03/countrydivided_3.jpg  Frighteningly, the government only has 31%.

Thus, if by stopping a slide "back" into chaos, we mean that the government needs to control the vast majority of the country, that's *very* hard -- much U.S. and allied blood with limited prospect for sustainable success. (Peak troop strength in Vietnam was 543,000 troops; maybe we're talking numbers something like that?)  Avoiding a nightmare of that scale, perhaps we'll be satisfied if the 58% under local control can be taught/bribed to play nice?  Let's hope it's the latter.

Two notable things are *not* our stated goals any longer, and that's refreshing, if crass:  (1) forcing a primitive, extremely prudish society to have its girls go to school is off the plate, and that's good.  (2) the drug war is abandoned as well, and that's also good, provided that the narco-dollars don't go to Al Qaeda.  In the perfect world, we'd accomplish all these fine things, but we're 8 years into this, and worse off than ever by many measures.  It's time to focus.  I've said elswhere, we should have gone after Bin Laden and his madmen, not this whole wretched country. We need to dial our objectives back toward the provocation, and not other worthy goals in what the Doors would call, a "Desperate Land."  This thing could still swallow Obama and more.