Word: afghanistans
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...allure has depended on his remaining inoffensive, even something of a blank slate. That’s why his Nobel acceptance speech last week came as such a shock, eliciting mixed reactions and media confusion. Speaking before a roomful of diplomats in Oslo, Obama defended sending additional troops into Afghanistan, declaring that the unobjectionable soft -power tactics everyone agrees are important—building strong institutions, defending human rights—are not enough. Many of the raised hackles stemmed from the exquisite irony of using a platform for peace for a defense of war. Yet the disconnect goes still...
...dared greatly at a moment of multiple crises for the U.S. Even his critics must acknowledge that. He has not sidled up to the issues facing the country but has confronted them directly - pumping billions into an economy in free fall, putting 50,000 more troops in Afghanistan, pushing toward a universal system of health insurance, beginning the fight against climate change, reactivating government regulatory agencies, transforming America's image abroad from arrogant bellicosity to comity. And he has done it all in a dignified and thoughtful fashion. Bestowing a Teddy Award - this column's annual attempt to celebrate political...
Vice President Joe Biden deserves one as well, for disagreement with the boss above and beyond the call of duty. Biden may have lost the Afghanistan argument, but he surely shaped it - for the better. I would also like to pause a moment to congratulate the Vice President on his gaffes. The political consultants' playbook may not have a place for a pol who admits there is a "30% chance we're going to get it wrong" on any issue, as Biden did on the President's economic plan, but the Vice President's arrant candor is a quality...
...when he faced down his home-state party on climate change and the need for civility in politics. He also showed creativity in his efforts to come up with a legal code for terrorist detainees, and personal courage by spending his annual three-week Air National Guard stint in Afghanistan, studying the prison at Bagram. Usually, journalists don't qualify for Teddy Awards, since they tend to be critics rather than denizens of the arena, but the conservative columnist David Frum - a Bush Administration speechwriter, who coined the phrase "axis of evil" - honored his intellectual principles by standing up against...
...slideshow of the war in Afghanistan...