President Barack Obama suggested Wednesday that he might make a decision on his new Afghanistan strategy within two weeks, before the scheduled Nov. 7 Afghan presidential election runoff between President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah.

“It’s entirely possible that we have a strategy formulated before the runoff,— said Obama, who appeared on NBC’s “Nightly News.— But he added, “We may not announce it.—

Obama has been meeting intensively with military and other advisers to decide on a new strategy for the war and to decide on a response to a request from Afghanistan war commander Stanley McChrystal on a request for some 40,000 additional combat troops.

Obama also assertively denied that there was anything wrong with an all-male basketball game he held at the White House with a group of lawmakers. The president has been criticized for not including women in what some say was a de facto networking opportunity with the president of the United States.

“I gotta say, I think this is bunk,— Obama said. The president said he was merely responding to a request by a group that plays a regular game of basketball to play at the White House “I don’t think it sends any kind of message,— Obama said.