Legal Commentary

Left/Right bloggers not confident in Obama Afghanistan plan

By David Kopel

This week?s National Journal poll of political bloggers asked ?How much confidence do you have in President Obama?s Afghanistan strategy?? On both the Left and the Right, no-one chose ?A great deal of confidence.? The figures for ?some confidence?/?not much confidence?/?no confidence? were 29%/50%/21% on the Left; and 43%/43%/14% on the Right.

I was among the ?some confidence? voters. Although I disagree with the announcement of tentative plan to begin withdrawing after 18 months, and I was dismayed by the dithering of the last three months, I am persuaded by John McCain?s support for the Obama plan. If Senator McCain thinks that the Obama plan can work, then I am cautiously hopeful.

The second question in the National Journal poll was ?Which is the bigger political imperative for Congress next year, creating jobs or reducing the deficit?? One hundred percent of the Left voted for ?creating jobs,? as did 43% of the Right. Along with 50% of the Right, I voted for cutting the deficit, because ?Reducing the deficit by ending the reckless spending spree will help improve business confidence, and thereby promote job creation.?

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on December 04, 2009 (boomark / email).