About six weeks ago, as Obama was dithering over Afghanistan, I reported that he worried, at a meeting with congressional leaders, about the cost of sending reinforcements. And I wrote that “this particularly pathetic excuse for ducking his responsibility for doing the right thing in Afghanistan put me in mind of the brilliant, and mordant, 1969 Philip Larkin poem, ‘Homage to A Government.'” Well, Obama is still dithering, and the New York Times reports today that, according to senior administration officials, “High Costs Weigh on Troop Debate for Afghan War.” One definition of a classic is that it’s always relevant, and Larkin’s poem is a classic. So here it is again, in the hope that it might spur President Obama–who, we know, is something of a poetry lover–to act like the leader of a great nation.
