Our language has been the rhetoric of fighting disease, fighting crime, fighting terrorists, fighting debt, fighting illegals and fighting drugs. We are thus engaged in the politics of protection. We have focused on averting disaster, on not losing what we have.

The president has announced that after an initial drawdown in Afghanistan, the remaining troops will be withdrawn "at a steady pace" going into 2014. But that's not good enough. President Obama had an opportunity to pivot his policy on the war and he didn't take it.

I have wondered why the White House hasn't been making some political hay over the success of the withdrawal timetable in Iraq. But I now see they wanted to roll this news out when people were actually paying attention.

History will judge Barack Obama over the long haul. But we've learned something in the short term that is simple, obvious, and has less to do with him...