In its never-ending crusade to change the subject when the President gets something right, the Drudge Report has a banner headline: What is she up to? Hillary Skips State of the Union, which is linked to this decidedly innocuous story. The fact is, the Afghanistan conference has been planned for at least a month–and is considered crucial by our allies there. The implication that Hillary wasn’t around because she somehow disapproves of the President is the sort of right-wing twaddle that inevitable goes viral–Rush Limbaugh spends a half hour ruminating on it, Glenn Beck picks it up and swirls it into a lunatic conspiracy. We’ve been here before. It is vomitous.
Update: Dexter Filkins, excellent as always, writes about some interesting developments in Afghanistan–a large eastern tribe has turn against the Taliban–and also about the London meeting, which has been called, in part, to figure out a way to proceed on reconciliation with the Taliban.