Verily...Verity

Gerard Baker, Times of London:

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

Verity...the Washington Post truth-telling editorial on Obama's position on Iraq and Afghanistan, via Powerline:

If Sunni leaders still believe that American troops are essential, even after al Qaeda has been routed, then the role of our troops, and of the new strategy associated with the surge, must have played a critical role in sustaining the "awakening" when al Qaeda was running rampant.

Second, the Post brilliantly takes on Obama's claim that Afghanistan is the "central front" in the battle against terrorism:

[T]here are no known al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and any additional U.S. forces sent there would not be able to operate in the Pakistani territories where Osama bin Laden is headquartered. While the United States has an interest in preventing the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban, the country's strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq, which lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world's largest oil reserves. If Mr. Obama's antiwar stance has blinded him to those realities, that could prove far more debilitating to him as president than any particular timetable.