And After All That Bran, The Sitzkrieg That Follows Is Pretty Spectacular As Well

Jules Crittenden diagrams the latest in Prussian counteroffensives, or as he calls it, the “Granolakrieg!”

Here are a couple that come at the same target from two different directions. First, my new favorite Kraut, Gabor Steingart, drives his Panzer through Obama’s speech. Then, we’ll strap on the granola feedbag for a ride with an old-school American commie symp … Tom Hayden … who’s leveling his old Chicom flamethrower at his own Obama bumpersticker. Yeah, it’s that serious.

Here’s the smoking rubble at Der Spiegel, where Steingart just unloaded some Sturm and Drang all over Obama:

It was as though Obama had taken one of his old campaign speeches and merged it with a text from the library of ex-President George W. Bush. Extremists kill in the name of Islam, he said, before adding that it is one of the “world’s great religions.” He promised that responsibility for the country’s security would soon be transferred to the government of President Hamid Karzai — a government which he said was “corrupt.” The Taliban is dangerous and growing stronger. But “America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars,” he added.

It was a dizzying combination of surge and withdrawal, of marching to and fro. The fast pace was reminiscent of plays about the French revolution: Troops enter from the right to loud cannon fire and then they exit to the left. And at the end, the dead are left on stage.

Steingart’s Bush-Obama Frankenstein stitch is spot on. But to be compared with anything having to do with the French revolution … poor Obama! I almost pity him. That Steingart’s one cold Fritz, just marched hobnailed all over the guy! (Technically, I believe the French revolution actually entered stage left and exited extreme stage right, but never mind that. The minute a Heinrich fires up a French revolution theater comparison, you can be pretty sure it isn’t because he admires Obama’s grand sense of history’s dramatic sweep. Forgive the blitzkriegcentric metaphors, BTW, Gabor. All in good fun. It’s reflexive, like a bad case of Teutonic Tourette’s Syndrome, acquired by by watching too much Hogan’s Heroes. That and hanging around a lot of your countrymen over the years.)

The American Enterprise Institute asks, “So now, even after his speech Tuesday night at West Point, does the president really have a strategy for the Afghan war?”

I’d say the jury’s still out on that, but anything that chaps both Tom Hayden and Bill Ayers’ sclerotic, reactionary hides can’t be all bad.