The Din: Afghanistan Looms for Obama, but Palin Dominates Another News Cycle

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:

Think President Obama misses being on American soil?

Democrats, in November, are looking for new ideas to pay for health care… and Republicans are now warring over abortion, too… there’s rumblings inside the top levels of the administration… a major Gitmo announcement is coming Friday… we’re about to get in deeper in Afghanistan, but only if it brings us closer to the way out… George W. Bush wants smaller government…

But this is Sarah Palin’s world — and that’s really all we can see from our porches right now.

There may be no better example of the power and perils associated with the former governor of Alaska than what we’ll see over the next week.

There is precisely one superstar in the Republican Party — and she happens, by choice, not to hold elected office, or feel as if she owes much of anything to anyone in the party establishment. (And you thought tea parties might be dangerous?)

On this Friday the 13th, the Palin craze is starting a few days earlier than anticipated — with Oprah and an early copy of the book coming before the Barbara Walters interviews next week.

According to the AP, which got hold of a copy of “Going Rogue” a few days early, Palin writes she was “bottled up” by the McCain campaign, and decries the “jaded aura” of political operatives.

This breaks some china — and is specific enough for dispute: “She says that most of her legal bills were generated defending what she called frivolous ethics complaints, but she reveals that about $50,000 was a bill she received to pay for the McCain campaign vetting her for the VP nod,” the AP’s Richard T. Pienciak writes. “She said when she asked the McCain campaign if it would help her financially, she was told McCain’s camp would have paid all the bills if he’d won; since he lost, the vetting legal bills were her responsibility.”

And, cue: “To my knowledge, the campaign did not receive any bill from Gov. Palin for legal expenses connected to her vetting, nor did the campaign ask her to pay any vetting-related expenses,” Trevor Potter, a lawyer for the McCain presidential campaign, told USA Today’s Kathy Kiely.

Drudge has an excerpt from the section on Nicolle Wallace pushing for the Katie Couric interview: “She just has such low self-esteem,” Wallace is quoted as saying of Couric. “Katie [wants] people to like her… She wants you to like her.”

Writes Palin: “Hearing all that, I almost started to feel sorry for her. Katie had tried to make a bold move from lively morning gal to serious anchor, but the new assignment wasn’t going very well.”

ABC’s Kate Snow, on “Good Morning America” Friday: “Last year, she had a campaign bus; this year, the bus will be wrapped with the front cover of her new book. . . . It’s payback time.”

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos: “There’s no question that this book tour can put her in a position to run.”

Get set: “The rollout for former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s highly anticipated and score-settling memoir began Thursday with all the orchestrated stagecraft, wild accusations, inconvenient leaks and media fascination that characterized her campaign as Sen. John McCain’s running mate during the 2008 presidential race,” Jason Horowitz and Michael D. Shear write in The Washington Post.

The responses from former McCain aides are mostly anonymous — so far: “John McCain offered her the opportunity of a lifetime, and during the campaign it seems that, for all of her mistakes, she is searching for people to blame,” said one former senior official in the McCain campaign. “We don’t need to go through this again.”

Another broadside, in Palin’s interview with Oprah, on the fallout from the Couric interview: “The campaign said, ‘Right on. Good. You’re showing your independence. This is what America needs to see and it was a good interview,’ ” Palin said. “And of course I’m thinking, if you thought that was a good interview, I don’t know what a bad interview is, because I knew it wasn’t a good interview.”

(She goes easy on Levi Johnston, and Levi thinks he knows why: “She knows what I got on her. It’s a smart move on her part,” Johnston said Thursday, at the Fleshbot awards. Yes, it is what you think it is. You absolutely, positively, cannot make this stuff up.)

The president is in Japan Friday, and held a news conference with Prime Minister Hatoyama Friday morning.

On Afghanistan: “I don’t think this is a matter of some datum of information I’m waiting on,” the president said. “It is a matter of making certain that when I send the young men and women into war, and I devote billions of dollars of US taxpayer money, that it’s making us safer.”

And on the Gitmo announcement: “I’m absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people insist on it. My administration will insist on it.”

More on that front, per the AP: “An Obama administration official says accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court. The official tells The Associated Press that Attorney General Eric Holder is scheduled to announce the decision later Friday morning.”

On the president’s agenda Friday, per ABC’s Sunlen Miller: “The White House says that it is likely the President and Prime Minister will discuss the controversial Futenma base issue, but did not anticipate an agreement coming out of their meetings today.”

Looming over everything is Afghanistan.

Getting out, as we get deeper in: “President Barack Obama is seeking an approach to eventually ending U.S. involvement in Afghanistan even as he weighs a possible expansion of the American military role in the conflict,” Bloomberg’s Edwin Chen and Viola Gienger write.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates: “How do we signal resolve and at the same time signal to the Afghans as well as to the American people that this isn’t an open-ended commitment?”

AP dispatch from Friday morning: “President Obama aimed Friday to shore up relations with a new Japanese government vowing to be more assertive with its U.S. ally, even as he grapples with sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.”

“The key sticking points appear to be timelines and mounting questions about the credibility of the Afghan government,” an administration official tells ABC’s Jake Tapper. “After years of substantial investments by the American people, governance in Afghanistan must improve in a reasonable period of time to ensure a successful transition to our Afghan partner.”

Anyone shocked that he’s after middle ground? “President Barack Obama wants to blend together elements of the different troop-increase options presented to him Wednesday to formulate a new strategy for the Afghan war, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday,” The Wall Street Journal’s Peter Spiegel writes.

What else Gates is saying, on all the leaks: “Everybody out there ought to just shut up,” he said, per ABC’s Kirit Radia.

What the president is saying: “We’ll give you the strategy and clear mission you deserve,” Obama said at his stop-off in Anchorage, per ABC’s Rachel Martin.

Casualties of the war over the war: “The Obama administration’s internal debate over Afghan policy has escalated into a battle of media leaks that’s straining relations between officials who’re seeking a major troop increase and those who want a more limited approach and a greater focus on domestic priorities,” McClatchy’s Jonathan S. Landay, Dion Nissenbaum and John Walcott report.

“The feud also has poisoned ties between the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan and the U.S. ambassador in Kabul, and left the administration struggling for leverage to press Afghan President Hamid Karzai to appoint untainted officials to his new government, attack corruption and share power with the parliament and provincial officials.”

RNC scrambling, then action: “The chairman of the Republican National Committee announced late Thursday that he is unilaterally ending coverage of elective abortion under the RNC’s Cigna health-care plan,” per ABC’s Teddy Davis.

“Money from our loyal donors should not be used for this purpose,” said RNC Chair Michael Steele in a written statement. “I don’t know why this policy existed in the past, but it will not exist under my administration. Consider this issue settled.”

Per Politico’s Jonathan Allen and Meredith Shiner, who broke the story Thursday: “Federal Election Commission Records show the RNC purchases its insurance from Cigna, and two sales agents for the company said that the RNC’s policy covers elective abortion. As of Thursday, the RNC’s plan covers elective abortion — a procedure the party’s own platform calls ‘a fundamental assault on innocent human life.’ ”

On health care — liberal groups targeting Democrats, again: Health Care for America Now has new TV ads launching, in Nebraska and Arkansas. From the release going out Friday: “The ads customized for each state and titled ‘Debate’ will run for one week starting today in Fort Smith, Jonesboro, and Little Rock, Arkansas and in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. The total advertising buy is approximately $310,000. The spot explains that while the nation has been discussing health care reform for months, it’s now time for the full Senate to begin its official debate.”

As first reported by the AP’s David Espo: “[Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid is apparently considering an increase in the Medicare payroll tax rate for workers with incomes of more than $250,000 a year, Senate aides said. One idea is to increase the tax rate by one-half of 1 percentage point, to 1.95 percent for high-income people, with an expectation that the government could raise $40 billion to $50 billion over 10 years,” Robert Pear reports in The New York Times.

W. speaks: “I went against my free-market instincts and approved a temporary government intervention to unfreeze the credit markets so that we could avoid a major global depression,” former President George W. Bush said at the unveiling of the George W. Bush Presidential Center at Southern Methodist University, per ABC’s Devin Dwyer and Evan Harris.

They write: “And without mentioning President Obama by name the former President did have some rather pointed comments for the current Administration claiming that generally ‘history shows that the greater threat to prosperity is not too little government involvement, but too much.’ “

“As the world recovers, we will face a temptation to replace the risk-and-reward model of the private sector with the blunt instruments of government spending and control,” Bush said, per Joseph Curl of the Washington Times.

More adieus: “The White House counsel, Gregory B. Craig, has told associates that he intends to step down from his post on Friday, putting to rest long-running speculation about whether he would remain as President Obama’s top lawyer,” Jeff Zeleny writes in The New York Times. “Mr. Craig had been at the center of controversial decisions over whether to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as well as revising administration policies on the interrogation and detention of prisoners. For months, questions have circulated inside the White House about his status, but an official said early Friday that Mr. Craig had made the decision to resign.”

ABC’s Jake Tapper: “Craig will be replaced by attorney Bob Bauer, who has served as President Obama’s private attorney. Bauer will start work in December, so as to help create a seamless transition.”

In Massachusetts, with few distinctions, some endorsements: “Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, a Medford native, is endorsing City Year cofounder Alan Khazei,” per The Boston Globe’s Matt Viser. “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is set to endorse US Representative Michael E. Capuano, a coup for any challenger to [Martha] Coakley, who is seeking to become the first female US senator from Massachusetts.”

Boosting a 2012er — David Brooks really likes Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.: “If you wanted a Republican with the same general body type and athletic grace as Barack Obama, you’d pick Thune,” Brooks writes in his column. “Republicans are still going to have to do root-and-branch renovation if they hope to provide compelling answers to issues like middle-class economic anxiety. But in the meantime, people like Thune offer Republicans a way to connect fiscal discipline with traditional small-town values, a way to tap into rising populism in a manner that is optimistic, uplifting and nice.”

The Kicker:

“Are you tough enough to come here to Massachusetts … So Stephen, are you willing to come?” — Senate candidate Alan Khazei, D-Mass., in a challenge to Stephen Colbert — and looking for a way to get another debate.

“I wouldn’t say they’re making up numbers, but there are no standards or consistency.” — Nevada Controller Kim Wallin, a Democrat, to the Las Vegas Sun, on how the stimulus is being tracked.

For up-to-the-minute political updates check out The Note’s blog . . . all day every day:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/

Intern for the ABC News Political Unit:

The ABC News Political Unit is now seeking full-time spring 2010 interns in Washington, D.C.

The paid internship begins Monday, Jan. 4, 2010, and runs through Friday, June 4, 2010.

Political Unit interns attend political events and contribute to stories for the politics page of ABCNews.com. They also help ABC News by conducting research, maintaining our calendar of upcoming political events, and posting stories to ABCNews.com.

In order to apply, you MUST be either a graduate student or an undergraduate student who has completed his or her first year of college. The internship is NOT open to recent graduates.

You also must be able to work eight hours per day, Monday through Friday. Interns will be paid $8.50/hour.

If you write well, follow politics closely, and have some familiarity with web publishing, send a cover letter and resume to Teddy Davis, ABC News’ Deputy Political Director, at teddy.davis@abc.com, by Sunday, Nov. 22, 2009, with the subject line: “INTERN” in all caps.

Please indicate in both your cover letter and the body of your email your student status and the specific dates and hours of your availability.

Sen. Jack Reed: ‘Emerging Consensus’ to Deploy More Training Troops in Afghanistan

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:

With President Obama mulling a new strategy — and new force levels — in Afghanistan, a key Senate Democrat said today that he expects the administration to send additional forces to help train Afghan troops, separate from any decision the president makes on combat troops.

“There’s an emerging consensus that additional trainers have to be deployed, because the key in the long term to avoid the repetition of this cycle is an Afghani security force that is capable and can provide basic stability,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said on ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today.

“So that is something I think everyone can see to be increased. The real issue is brigade combat teams, the combat forces. My sense is that — as has been reported — the president is looking at several options, including an increase — I don’t know what the number is — but including an increase to those forces.”

The comments by Reed, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a former Army ranger, suggest that President Obama will be sending more troops to Afghanistan even if he rejects Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s recommendation for additional combat forces.

Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., has endorsed the concept of sending more training troops instead of boosting the number of US combat troops.

But any move to increase US troop levels in Afghanistan is likely to provoke strong opposition from some Democrats in Congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said she doesn’t detect “a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan” in Congress.

Reed also said that Matthew Hoh’s resignation in protest over Afghanistan policy got his attention.

Hoh last month left his post as the senior US civilian in Zabul province, writing that he had “lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan.”

“I think it underscores the need for evaluation of what’s been done there unfortunately,” Reed said. “And I’ve been over to the country on a number of occasions. You know, four or five years ago it was a much different place in terms of security, in terms of potential, in terms of what we could have done. But now, I think through the wrong-headed approach to Iraq by the Bush administration, we’re now in a situation in Afghanistan that’s much more complicated. The Taliban has re-formed. There is growing frustration by the people, not only with their government, but also with the fact that we haven’t produced the immediate benefits that they assume.”

“So I think it just reflects a great deal of frustration, but also underscores the need to step back and analyze our policy and our strategy.”

On health care, Reed applauded the decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to include a public option in the health care bill that will come to the Senate floor — even if that means not a single Republican will support the measure.

“I think the important issue is to try and do it right,” Reed said. “If we can get a bill through simply for the sake of being bipartisan, that doesn’t work. That’s not going to help the country — nor, particularly, our caucus. I think we have to do it right. I think the public option is a right thing to do.”

Though the provision Reid is backing in the Senate bill isn’t the “robust” public option many liberals are calling for, Reed said he thinks the plan — which would give states the opportunity to “opt out” of a public option — would do enough.

“I think it does enough,” Reed said. “I think with a public option, you will have an opportunity for people to go and to find health care and to do it in a way in which they will not be sort of unfairly dealt with.”

Click HERE to see the full interview with Sen. Jack Reed.

We also checked in with Republican strategist Kevin Madden, on the conservatives’ split in the race in an upstate New York House district, plus the latest on health care reform.

Click HERE to see that portion of today’s program.

President Obama’s Operating Space on Afghanistan Gets Narrower

ABC News' Kristina Wong reports: A month into reviewing U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, President Obama appears to be operating in an increasingly narrowing space between reality on the ground in Afghanistan and political camps in Washington, with pressure closing in from all sides.

Leading one camp is Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is urging the president to make a decision on strategy in Afghanistan as soon as possible, and follow the recommendations laid out by Gen. Stanley McChrystal in his Aug. 30 assessment on how to succeed in Afghanistan, including adopting a counterinsurgency strategy that would strengthen Afghanistan’s central government, and deprive al-Qaida of a safe haven there. McCain is also urging the president to follow McChrystal’s recommendation of increasing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan by around 40,000 – the middle option of three recommended in a separate troops request.

“We are not operating in a vacuum now. 68,000 Americans are there already. Eight young Americans were killed in a firefight – one of the reasons is they didn’t have adequate support – just recently,” McCain said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday.

On the other side is Vice President Joe Biden, who reportedly favors a counterterrorism strategy that would scale back the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and specifically target members of al-Qaida with predator drone attacks. With him are liberal Democrats such as Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., who said this weekend, he would move to legislatively cut off funds for additional troops should the president decide to order a large number of additional American troops to Afghanistan.

“I am already working with people like Representative Jim McGovern, Republican Congressman Walter Jones, Barbara Lee and others to prepare for that possibility. I have already voted against various spending bills that support this policy. I didn’t even think the addition of the troops earlier this year made sense. So there will be resistance to this if necessary,” said Feingold, who also spoke Sunday on “Face the Nation”.

Another parameter shaping President Obama’s decision-making space is the upcoming Nov. 7 run-off presidential election in Afghanistan, after its first election on Aug. 20 was found by international monitors to be fraught with fraud perpetrated by supporters of the current Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. One camp is urging President Obama to not wait until after the election, while the other deems it necessary to see what type of government the U.S. could be working with.

After Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., returned last week from a diplomatic tour de force to Afghanistan, during which he convinced President Karzai to accept the International Election Commission’s vote count and agree to a run-off election, he urged the president to wait until after the Nov. 7 elections to make a decision on strategy, saying it would “irresponsible” to decide to send more troops before then.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, blasted the idea the president should wait until after the elections to make a decision on strategy.

“I understand why these are tough decisions, but I think it’s taken too long and some people have been hypercritical in suggesting that he’s waiting until after this election because [Democrats] have some tough governorships up for election. I hope that’s not the case,” Hatch said on CNN’s “State of the Union”, referring to the upcoming Nov. 4 gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia – where Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine and Democrat Creigh Deeds are facing competitive races.

Asked whether Hatch agreed with former Vice President Dick Cheney, who recently accused the president of “dithering” on Afghanistan strategy and emboldening U.S. adversaries, he said he would never want to call his president “dithering.”

“I know it’s a tough position that he’s in, but why not follow he advice of all of his generals and especially General McChrystal?” Hatch said. “They need these troops, there’s no question about it. And we’re exposing our young men and women over there – a number of them have been killed, I’m not blaming the president for that, but we’re exposing them without the proper help that they’ve just got to have.”

But Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, disagreed, saying the president should be taking his time in getting the strategy right.

“We want to do this right. We should move deliberatively. We should move in a way that the president is doing by making this decision the right way,” Brown said, also on “State of the Union. “The president is doing it right, I think, waiting until the – not the Virginia and New Jersey election, but waiting until the election in Kabul and in the Helmand province and in Kandahar is the right way to go.”

While White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said last Sunday the president was not delaying a decision based on the elections’ outcome, he said that “most important” was that Afghanistan “get a government that is seen as legitimate to the people and has the credibility to be a partner in the effort to secure Afghanistan.”

One element complicating the dilemma of whether to wait for the run-off election results or not is the broad expectation that President Karzai — who is associated with Afghanistan's current corrupt and inept central government — will win. Recently, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said one could conclude the likelihood of Afghan President Kharzai “winning a second round is probably pretty high.”

Therefore, on one hand, elections could fail to lend the Afghan government sufficient credibility if the winner is Karzai – and troops would be needed to bolster security in Afghanistan regardless of the elections' outcome. But on the other hand, the elections themselves could lend credibility to Karzai or the winning government, which could provide the U.S. with a credible Afghan partner and help improve the security situation in Afghanistan without a large number of additional troops.

White House officials have downplayed the importance of additional troops as the main determinant of success in Afghanistan, citing governance and economic development as other important determinants. The Wall Street Journal recently reported the possibility of a hybrid strategy, between a 40,000 troops increase, and the scaled-back counterterrorism strategy presented by Biden.

Yet, middle ground for the Obama Administration could be getting scarcer, with President Karzai and his opponent, former foreign minister of Afghanistan Dr. Abdullah Abdullah calling for additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan themselves.

“The need for more troops is there in order to reverse the situation. If the situation is not reversed from deteriorating further the security situation, so the future of this country will be at risk,” Abdullah said on FOX’s “Fox News Sunday.”

“This situation requires a sort of dramatic increase in the number of troops in order to stop it from further deteriorating and reversing it. The permanent solution is in a road map that Afghanistan stands on its own feet in a few years down the road, number of troops could be decreased in Afghanistan, finally, and eventually will stand on its own feet,” Abdullah said.

A month after the President began his strategy review, and nearly two months after McChrystal’s assessment, pressure is closing in from all sides, with the same questions are still largely unanswered – what strategy will the president decide on and when? Will he send more American troops to Afghanistan and how many?

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., empathized with the president.

“I’m wrestling with it myself, and boy it’s difficult. There is no good answer,” Schumer said.

Peace Group: If Obama Deserves Prize He Will Stop ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan

ABC News' Teddy Davis reports:

Peace Action, a liberal anti-war group, has issued a statement saying that if President Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize he will stop the “surge” in Afghanistan.

“It is ironic that this award comes on the same day that the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the administration is considering sending as many as 60,000 more troops to Afghanistan,” said Peace Action's executive director Kevin Martin.

“President Obama needs to prove that he really is a force for peace. He can do that by refusing to put more troops in Afghanistan, and instead committing to a non-military solution that doesn't destabilize a nuclear-armed Pakistan like a surge would,” the statement continues.

The group adds that the president is moving in the right direction on
nuclear disarmament but hasn't done “nearly enough” yet to warrant a Nobel Prize.

While Obama is being criticized by Peace Action on theleft, he is also being pummeled from the right.

“This little man child who has not done diddly squat,” said Rush Limbaugh on hisFriday radio show. “He knows exactly why he was given this award … man of peace not to … take on Iran!”

ABC News' Steve Portnoy contributed to this report.

Palin: No Time for ‘Cold Feet’ on Afghanistan

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:

Former Gov. Sarah Palin is endorsing calls for additional troops in Afghanistan, calling on President Obama “to act as commander-in-chief” and increase US force levels.

“Hundreds of thousands of Americans have sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers in harm's way in Afghanistan right now. We owe it to all those brave Americans serving in uniform to give them the tools they need to complete their mission,” Palin, R-Alaska, wrote in a message posted to her Facebook page last night.

Palin warns that not following Gen. Stanley McChrystal's recommendations could mean that al Qaeda “will once again find a safe haven, the Taliban will impose its cruelty on the Afghan people, and Pakistan will be less stable.”

“Our allies and our adversaries are watching to see if we have the staying power to protect our interests in Afghanistan. I recently joined a group of Americans in urging President Obama to devote the resources necessary in Afghanistan and pledged to support him if he made the right decision. Now is not the time for cold feet, second thoughts, or indecision — it is the time to act as commander-in-chief and approve the troops so clearly needed in Afghanistan,” Palin writes.

Palin posted her message just hours after Democratic and Republican congressional leaders — including her former running mate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., met at the White House to offer views and perspectives on the war in Afghanistan. McCain is also calling for the president to send additional troops.

Palin, whose memoir is set to publish next month, has increasingly turned to Facebook as a means of public communication since resigning her post as governor in July.

Obama Squeezed by MoveOn.org on Afghanistan

ABC News' Teddy Davis reports:

MoveOn.org, a liberal advocacy group which battled former President Bush on Iraq, is now calling on President Obama to develop an exit strategy for Afghanistan.

“U.S. policy in Afghanistan has reached a pivotal moment,” reads MoveOn's email to its members. “Can you write to the White House and tell them we need a clear exit strategy — not tens of thousands more US troops stuck in a quagmire?”

The move is significant because up until now the major liberal groups had kept quiet on Afghanistan, wanting to give the new president time to stabilize a military intervention which has been going on since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

MoveOn's decision to engage a president that it helped elect could increase pressure on President Obama not to go along with calls for a stepped up troop presence in Afghanistan.

The email, which is reproduced below, calls on Obama to listen to people like Vice President Biden and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel who are urging “caution” rather than to “pro-war advocates” inside and outside of the administration.

MoveOn's entry into the debate over Afghanistan comes at the end of a week which began with the Washington Post reporting that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, has prepared an assessment stating that more troops are needed or else the mission will fail.

Republicans, including potential presidential candidates Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, have been urging the president this week to move forward with a planned troop build-up.

“This is not time for Hamlet in the White House,” said Romney in Monday remarks to the conservative Foreign Policy Initiative.

“He picked his team,” Romney added. “This team is unanimous. They have developed a strategy consistent with his principles. How in the world can he at this stage be saying what he is saying?”

Here is the full text of MoveOn's email:

Dear MoveOn member,

U.S. policy in Afghanistan has reached a pivotal moment. President Obama is poised to make a critical decision about the Afghanistan war in the next few weeks. And there's a big debate happening right now about what to do.

Pro-war advocates both inside and outside the administration—including John McCain and Joe Lieberman—are calling for a big escalation.2 The general in charge of Afghanistan is expected to request tens of thousands more troops, and that may just be the beginning.3 They're cranking up the pressure for an immediate surge.

But other powerful voices are urging caution: Vice President Biden and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel have raised real concerns about the idea of sending more troops to Afghanistan without a clear strategy4, as have Democrats in Congress.5 And a majority of Americans oppose increasing troop levels.6

Can you write to the White House and tell them we need a clear exit strategy—not tens of thousands more US troops stuck in a quagmire? You can send the President a message by clicking below:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51843&id=&t=1

Some administration officials are arguing for a smaller, nimbler approach with a narrow focus on the threat from al-Qaeda. But cheerleaders for the war refuse to acknowledge that there could be any viable strategy other than more and more troops. So they're trotting out the same tired old lines and questioning the motives of those who disagree with them.7

They figure they can cut off any debate about our ultimate goals in Afghanistan and the region. But President Obama has consistently shown a willingness to stand up for his more thoughtful approach to foreign policy, and that's what he needs to do here, too.

The hawks are making their position heard. Now, the majority of Americans—those of us who are for as quick and as responsible an end to the war as possible—need to make our voices heard, too.

Can you write to the President now?

–Daniel, Lenore, Kat, Marika, and the rest of the team

McCain Feels ‘Sympathy’ for Obama on Afghanistan

ABC News' Teddy Davis reports:

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is stepping up pressure on President Obama to go forward with a planned troop build-up in Afghanistan despite rising opposition to the move from some members of the president's own party.

“I have some sympathy for the president but I think the president was right during the campaign and I think he was right in March when he said we have to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist haven,” said McCain.

McCain stepped up pressure on his 2008 rival while participating in a conversation with Rober Kagan which was sponsored by the conservative Foreign Policy Initiative at the W Hotel in Washington, D.C.

McCain's remarks came one day after
the Washington Post reported that Gen. McChrystal has sent Defense Secretary Robert Gates a confidential assessment which states that he needs more forces in Afghanistan within the next year and that without them, the eight-year conflict “will likely result in failure.”

During his Tuesday foreign policy talk, McCain repeatedly said that he has “sympathy” for his 2008 rival because opposition to “further engagement in Afghanistan” runs high on the Left, which McCain characterized as President Obama's political base.

“I have some sympathy . . . But it's a tough job,” said McCain. “Throughout history leaders have gone against the majority of public opinion either in their party or in the country.”

McCain portrayed the US challenge in Afghanistan as being similar to the US decision to pursue a “surge” strategy in Iraq.

“If you try to win a conflict on the cheap . . . then you most likely fail,” said McCain.

McCain is not alone among high-profile Republicans pressuring Obama on Afghanistan.

In an interview with FORTUNE magazine which was released on Tuesday, former Bush Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: “The last time we left Afghanistan, and we abandoned Pakistan…that territory became the very territory on which Al Qaeda trained and attacked us on September 11th…It’s that simple. If you want another terrorist attack in the U.S., abandon Afghanistan.”

ABC News' Rick Klein contributed to this report.

U.S. Commander in Afghanistan to Be Replaced

ABC News’ Martha Raddatz reports: Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to make an announcement this afternoon that Gen. David McKiernan, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, will be replaced by Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a former special operations commander. McChrystal, the director of the Joint Staff, is a three star but will soon be awarded a fourth star.

McKiernan has been in place only 11 months and will not move to another assignment. This change in command during a time of war is a large statement about Gate’s faith in McKiernan’s leadership. While Gen. George Casey was replaced in Iraq by Gen. David Petraeus in 2007, it was after two and a half years and Casey was then made chief of staff of the Army.

More to come after the secretary’s press conference.

Cantor: GOP Backs Obama on Afghanistan, Pakistan

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: As President Obama famously said earlier this year, one day soon House Republican Whip Eric Cantor would say, “Boy, Obama had a good idea.”

That day may be here — on Afghanistan and Pakistan policy.

On ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today, Cantor, R-Va., made clear that Republicans are largely supportive of Obama’s policy efforts — even while Democratic leaders, including House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., question the US mission in the region.

“This is an instance where I think you’ll find most of us on the Republican side of the aisle supporting the spirit of what the president is trying to do,” Cantor said. “That is to ensure that that region of the world, Afghanistan and Pakistan, not become a base from which terrorists can launch attacks against us or our allies.”

“Chairman Obey has even gone so far as to say that the administration has but one year, and if he is not successful in one year this president will be stopped by — I assume what Mr. Obey suggests — the Appropriations Committee here in the House,” he added.

“But again, that goes to the point, there is only one commander-in-chief. There are only so many generals on the ground from which the commander-in-chief gets his information, and I think any time we begin to impose the 535 members of the House and Senate onto what the generals are saying on the ground, we are in for a recipe for real trouble.”

Cantor’s comments suggest that, if President Obama is owning the Afghanistan-Pakistan policy like never before, Republican leaders may own it with him.

Also today, speaking about the Republican Party’s National Council for a New America initiative — which Cantor helped kick off over the weekend in Arlington, Va. — Cantor pushed back on the notion that this amounts to GOP “re-branding.”

“It’s not a re-branding message. I do take issue with that, because the National Council for a New America is a group that has been launched to go about reconnecting with the people and so that we can adopt the Reagan model of going and selling the conservative message,” Cantor said.

“It is not about re-branding the conservative message, it is about fostering discussions, wide-open policy debates, robust discussions around the issues facing this country and around the issues facing people across America and in their communities. And obviously given the direction that we see this administration going in and this Congress going in, we need a dose of conservatism to return.”

Cantor also defended his March vote to impose a 90 percent tax on AIG bonuses — a vote that split the Republican caucus. (On the program, I wrongly characterized Cantor as being in the “vast minority” inside the GOP on that vote; in fact, 85 House Republicans voted for the measure, while 87 voted against it.)

Former governor Jeb Bush, R-Fla., attacked Congress’ move to recoup bonuses via a retroactive tax as “un-American” and “scary for so many people” at Saturday’s National Council kick-off event, sitting beside Cantor.

“Listen, at the end of the day AIG is a government-owned entity at this point,” Cantor said. “You’re essentially like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The taxpayers own almost 90 percent, I think between 85 and 90 percent of AIG. You do not have a situation where you can take a step back, as the governor suggests, because a government is all-in all-fours. And so when we have that kind of situation where the taxpayer dollars are at risk, the more conservative thought in my mind is to make sure that we’re not rewarding failure on the part of taxpayer dollars.”

Watch our full interview with Cantor HERE.

We also chatted with Ana Marie Cox of The Daily Beast and Air America about investigations of Bush administration lawyers, Sen. Arlen Specter’s party switch, and — most importantly — what to wear and where to party during the annual Washington prom that is the weekend of the White House Correspondents Association dinner.

(Find out why it always makes sense for women to just wear simple black dresses.)

Watch our full interview with Ana Marie Cox HERE.