adviser, meteorologist, i should say, for the national weather service. he s based in wilmington, north carolina, just a little bit north of where i am. and steven, this storm, it really is a multiple threat. yeah. we re seeing potential deadly storm surge and catastrophic rainfall as this storm slows near the coast. so it s not just going to be the wind element or the surge element or the rainfall, possibly all three of those, as this storm approaches. so certainly a life-threatening situation that we had to prepare for. a few minutes ago, we talked to our meteorologist, chad myers, who said the hurricane was moving in toward the coast at 17 miles an hour. but you ve just begun to see some signs of slowing down. yeah, it looks like that trend in the models that have been showing, and of course the national hurricane center s forecast with the slowing trend will occur today. and that s going to be so unfortunate, because with the storm in the area for so long,
i think the president has shown he is very interested in heading for the exit and what that means is that american influence across the region an across the world has been diminished. rudy, the other question is syria. he says today that the future must not belong the dictator who masters the people. we re at, i guess, more than a year since president first called for assad to step down. people on both sides of the aisle have said when will that point be. yep. syria is important. but first, let s get back to afghanistan. we still have 69,000 nato troops in country. we have just gotten the point where we have taken the surge element and brought them home side. so, you know, it s been a measured schedule. not to the same schedule that barack was prescribed by memorandum agreement but there is still a sizable force in