QsOTD

Barack Obama on August 28, 2008, accepting the Democrat Party Presidential nomination:

If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament and judgment to serve as the next commander-in-chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have.

For -- for while -- while Senator McCain was turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, I stood up and opposed this war, knowing that it would distract us from the real threats that we face.

When John McCain said we could just muddle through in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11.

President Obama's March 27, 2009, briefing on Afghanistan and Pakistan:

I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That's the goal that must be achieved. That is a cause that could not be more just. . .

There is an uncompromising core of the Taliban. They must be met with force, and they must be defeated.

Reuters report October 19, 2009:

[Secretary of Defense Robert] Gates did not say when he expected U.S. President Barack Obama to decide on whether to increase troops, a decision complicated by rising casualties and fading public support for the stalled, eight-year-old war.

(via Paul Mirengoff in the Washington Examiner, Patterico, Best of the Web)