Blog Heap of Links for the day 19 February 2009

…when President Obama announced his first troop deployment to Afghanistan, he did so quietly in the form of a paper statement from a press secretary after he signed the largest stimulus package in U.S. history -- a contrast to President Bush's announcing his troop surge for the war in Iraq before a prime-time audience on TV. "We got a paper statement rather than a speech because this is not a surge," said retired Maj. Gen. Ret. Bob Scales. "This is surge lite."