Tag: al qaida

BOULDER-- In a speech that alternated between conversational asides and full-throat exhortations, President Obama rallied roughly 11,000 supporters at the packed Coors Event Center on the University of Colorado campus here Thursday. It was the latest but not the last scheduled event in the high-intensity swing-state get-out-the-vote effort his campaign here has orchestrated for the final short stretch to Election Day next week.

The senior Democratic members of Colorado's congressional delegation, Senator Mark Udall and Representative Diana DeGette, applauded President Obama for announcing Wednesday night that he would be withdrawing roughly 30,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by November of next year, a commitment he had made when he ordered the same number of troops into battle as part of the "surge" last year. The two lawmakers expressed frustration, however, that the president had not been more bold in seeking to draw down U.S. commitments in the country.

President Obama gave a long-awaited address Tuesday night at West Point Military Academy on his plan for the war in Afghanistan. It was a speech bound to disappoint and it did, it seems, at least partly on both the left and the right. Among the responses from the Colorado delegation in D.C., Sen. Mark Udall, one of the most supportive of the president's vision, also felt obliged at one point to respond in advance to constituent dissent. "We must acknowledge the complex choices we face. It is important for us all to keep in mind that no one has all the right answers." Rep. Ed Perlmutter, who also offered support for the president's strategy, said he planned to travel to Afghanistan in the coming months to gain additional insight of his own. Full video of the speech and a roundup of responses after the jump.