Call me a cockeyed optimist, but take a look at this fascinating Washington Post piece about a latter-day Daniel Ellsberg who resigned from government service in disillusion with our Afghanistan policy. They must be reading this story with delight in the White House.

I see striking similarities between President Obama’s approach to Afghanistan and his tactics in the health care reform battle. Both employ foot-dragging and a feint to the right for which both sides blame him — the left calling him soft in the public option struggle and the right calling him soft for not pouring troops into Afghanistan starting yesterday.

In both cases he seems to be backtracking from his earlier positions and campaign promises. The effect, however, has been to energize the progressive base so as to create pressure on the president that makes it politically easier to arrive at the point he wanted to reach all along. The hard right will then blame him for caving to the pinkos, but what does he care? They’re not his people and never will be. And the pinkos, who are his people, can bask in the pleasure of having brought the president to their senses.

I remember being wrong a couple of times before, once in the late sixties and once again in the nineties, as I recall — although the exact details are now hazy. So I could be wrong about this, too. Tell me if I am.