Joe Biden, incapable of passing up an opportunity to advise the girding of one’s loins, returned from Iraq and Afghanistan to give President-elect Barack Obama the bad news:

Freshly returned from a tour of war zones and global hotspots, Vice President-elect Joe Biden told President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday that “things are going to get tougher” in Afghanistan.[…]”The truth is that things are going to get tougher in Afghanistan before they’re going to get better,” Biden said.

For once, he’s right. As the U.S. ramps up the effort to kill and capture Taliban fighters and al Qaeda members in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we may see flashes of Iraq 2006 in the media. But a good portion of how this is absorbed among American civilians will depend upon the leadership style of the White House. As things get worse in Afghanistan, Barack Obama and Joe Biden (when permitted to comment) are going to have to do the unthinkable: praise the gains in security and freedom in Iraq. There is no more convincing or readily available object lesson in the benefits of American military forbearance than the burgeoning democracy taking shape in the heart of the Muslim world. Joe Biden spent enough time in Iraq to observe and report any number of political and security developments, yet the only story that gets out upon his return is that things are bad and getting worse in Afghanistan.

At some point, the Obama administration is going to have to realize that enumerating the real and imaginary failures of the Bush administration is poor leadership. The same can be said for the precipitous lowering of expectations that the Obama camp has made a top priority. Deflating Obamamania was a good idea, but we get it now: things are bad and there are no miracle cures. But can we at least hope for sober leadership instead of condolences from on high?