The Times With Obama

This morning’s New York Times contains an interview conducted with President Obama aboard Air Force One as he traveled from Ohio to Andrews Air Force Base. The President opines on several issues, including his Afghanistan strategy and the economy.

On Afghanistan, the president indicated that he would pursue a policy of reconciliation with more moderate elements of the Taliban, similar to the roadmap implemented in Iraq by General Petraeus. You remember General Petraeus, don’t you? He’s the guy both Obama and his Secretary of State lambasted when he testified before their committee a year ago imploring Congress to give the Surge more time to work. “If you talk to General Petraeus, I think he would argue that part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us because they had been completely alienated by the tactics of Al Qaeda in Iraq,” Mr. Obama said. I guess we should take comfort that the President now thinks our effort in Iraq was a success.

On the economy, the President says that he has no problem sleeping at night. Do you recall the public pasting Bush received when he said the same? And while Obama concedes that the economy more than likely will not begin growing again this year, Americans should not “stuff money in their mattresses.” Not yet anyway.

And how does the President respond to republican minority, critical of his deficit spending programs and far reaching policies? He asserts that his actions have been entirely consistent with free-market principles, and added that market intervention and expansion of social welfare programs began under President George W. Bush.

From deficit spending and enemy non-combatants, to rendition and Surges, how is it that a guy who spent the better part of his campaign railing against “eight years of failed policies” under George W. Bush now points to them as the basis of his own administration?

Worse yet, why is he not being called out for it?