WHAT IT TAKES TO GET "POLITICAL COVER"
(hint: it doesn't involve you, peasant)

Chuck Todd et al., at NBC's First Read:

Obama's political cover: The troop withdrawal that the president will announce concerns the 30,000 surge troops, not the total force in Afghanistan.... politically, Obama has more leeway than he's ever had before. Just listen to what Mitt Romney said about Afghanistan in last week's GOP debate. And listen to what Jon Huntsman said on "TODAY" this morning: "We can probably be a little more aggressive [on withdrawal] over the next year... What we need now is a healthy dose of nation-building at home."

Yup -- that's what it takes for Obama to get the necessary "leeway" and "political cover" to withdraw troops from Afghanistan: two rich white Mormon Republicans, one of them a basement-dweller in his own party's opinion polls, apparently giving Obama permission to withdraw.

It doesn't matter what we, the American people, think. It doesn't matter that a new Pew poll says 56% of the country wants the troops out of Afghanistan as soon as possible, as opposed to 34% who don't; that a CBS poll a couple of weeks ago showed that 64% of respondents wanted a troop withdrawal; that a CNN poll a couple of weeks ago said 74% of respondents wanted all or some troops withdrawn; that an ABC/Washington Post poll said 73% of Americans want "a substantial number of U.S. combat forces" withdrawn; or that a May Gallup poll showed that 59% of the public thinks "the U.S. has accomplished its mission in Afghanistan and should bring its troops home," as opposed to 39% who agreed that "the U.S. still has important work to do in Afghanistan and should maintain its troops there."

That's just the rabble talking, right? What do you think this is -- a democracy? Now, two moneybags news-anchor clones from the Daddy Party -- if they say we can go wobbly on Afghanistan, that means something.