Bookworm:

The last seven years of the Bush presidency had as their soundtrack “Bush lied, people died” or “No wars for oil.” Democrats loved their troops so much that they couldn’t bear to see them die because a president had ulterior motives. Bush left the White House and, magically, Democrats stopped caring about the troops.

Obama, however, did still care about the troops: He cared that they functioned as political props to give him cover in his half-assed efforts to “be tough on terrorism.” We know this because former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has written a book. Sure, Gates could be lying in Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War , but one suspects he’s not — at least as to this point. If Bob Woodward (who reviewed the book) is correct, what Gates reports is entirely consistent with Obama’s actions; his speeches about troops, terrorism, and Afghanistan; and his political record before becoming president:

In a new memoir, former defense secretary Robert Gates unleashes harsh judgments about President Obama’s leadership and his commitment to the Afghanistan war, writing that by early 2010 he had concluded the president “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.” (Emphasis added.)

Assuming the above statement to be true (as I do), what Obama did was unconscionable. Bush, who stood on Ground Zero right after 9/11, believed in the fight, even though he knew troops would die protecting America’s interests. (And that statement is true whether one believes that Bush headed into war to keep America safe or headed into war to keep Big Oil safe. I, of course, incline to the former view.) Obama, however, believed only in himself and was willing to let people die to advance his political standing. Ace spells it out: