Despite pronouncing the word “Taliban” as if he were a calypso singer, President Obama sounded and looked strong and confident in his Afghanistan-themed address last night.

The optics were right, as the president was joined by row upon row of sharply dressed officers-in-waiting. The pace of the speech was good – the president not getting too caught up in any one particular area. And the content should give most Americans the sense that President Obama knows what’s at stake in Afghanistan and is willing to meet the challenge.

The speech contained few details – 30,000 additional forces will be deployed beginning in the next month, with a withdrawal scenario likely to begin in summer 2011. But the speech was thematically full, if at times contradictory.

The president made clear why Afghanistan is a crucial fight, calling it the “epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda.” Terrorism is “no idle danger, no hypothetical threat,” he said, adding that “the danger will only grow if the region slides backward.”

To confront the threat, he articulated three missions in Afghanistan: denying safe haven to al Qaeda terrorists, reversing Taliban momentum, and reinforcing Hamid Karzai’s government. The goal in Afghanistan, which he repeatedly invoked, is to turn over control of the country to the Afghan government and people.

He left unclear how stability will be gauged. We’ll know more as future conditions evolve, yet it’s important to have a sense of what will happen in 2011 if, for instance, Afghanistan’s government is still weak and/or corrupt in whole or in part, or if the border areas are still simmering with terrorist activity. Having made a strong case that American security depends on conditions in Afghanistan, the president presumably will have to be supremely confident in the Afghan army’s ability to prevent a Taliban resurgence before US troops can leave.

Unfortunately, the speech also had its “there he goes again” moments. For instance, after describing the “unity” that prevailed in the United States and among our foreign allies when the war in Afghanistan was initiated – and lamenting that “years of debate over Iraq and terrorism have left our unity in tatters” – President Obama went on to rehash the debate.

While the US “turned our attention elsewhere” [ie. to Iraq], Osama bin Laden escaped capture, the Afghan government grew corrupt, and the Taliban was resurgent. Whether these events are actually related to our involvement in Iraq is beside the point. The message is: George Bush got us into this mess.

President Obama even said that commanders’ request for additional resources for Afghanistan were continually unheeded by the previous Administration, an unusual argument to make as he announced that he was only giving his own commander 75 percent of the troops he requested. And, in case there was any doubt, Mr. Obama reminded us that he didn’t support the Iraq war (as a state senator in Illinois), which must be encouraging to the tens of thousands of troops he leads who are still fighting it.

In a classic guns-vs.-butter analysis, the president also indicated that our spending in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last eight years has hampered our economy and the federal budget. Soothing his party’s left wing, and probably reflecting his own heart, he suggested a recalibration of our priorities. “Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power,” he said, without noting that our security provides a foundation for our prosperity.

Meeting domestic needs is “why our troop commitment cannot be open-ended,” Mr. Obama stated, preemptively undermining his assertion at the end of the speech that “our commitment is unwavering.”

And in a bit of get-tough rhetoric aimed at the Afghan government, President Obama pulled out an old cliché, saying “the days of providing a blank check are over.” Thus in one speech he managed to accuse George Bush of not devoting enough resources to Afghanistan … and of devoting unlimited resources to Afghanistan. I guess it makes sense in his head.

Overall, President Obama delivered a strong outline of where the mission in Afghanistan is headed, but he squandered an opportunity to build good will across the political spectrum by giving in to his habitual need to remind people what an incompetent boob George Bush was.

“I refuse to accept the notion that we cannot summon [our post-9/11] unity again,” the president said.

I know how he could start.