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Steve Hayward at Power Line with a prescient Mencken quote.
Way back in 1920, the great H.L. Mencken offered the following forecast for the future of the presidency:
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
Behold the proof: Barack Obama.
Jonah Goldberg is first up trying to explain US Syria policy.
… So from the vantage point of foreign brutes, bullies, and buffoons, it’s understandable that America’s methods could be confused for stupidity. This is why I love the old expression, “America can choke on a gnat, but swallow a tiger whole.”
So I am trying very hard to hold onto this perspective as I watch the president of the United States behave in a way you don’t have to be a pan-Arab autocrat to think is incredibly stupid.
Where to begin? Perhaps with Obama’s initial refusal to support the moderate rebels seeking to overthrow Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, a puppet of Iran and bagman for Hezbollah. Or we might start with Obama’s refusal to support the Green Movement in Iran, which sought to overthrow the Iranian regime, which would have been a triumph for both our principles and our national interests.
These were odd choices, particularly given his decision to help depose Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, an indisputably evil man, but also a dictator who posed no threat, who abided by our demands to relinquish WMDs, and whose domestic death toll was a tiny fraction of Assad’s. …
… I understand the attraction the buddy system has for a man who, as a state legislator, perfected the art of voting “present” on hard questions. But it’s hard to see this as anything other than rank political cowardice.
The buck stopped with Truman. For Obama, the buck is kryptonite.
In Stockholm on Wednesday, the president said that the credibility of the world, America, Congress, and the international community is on the line. Everybody is on the hook for his red line, except for the one person who actually drew it.
I’d love to see the genius in that argument, but it looks like clear-cut stupidity to me.
Charles Krauthammer says the president is not serious.
…Problem is, Obama promised U.S. weaponry three months ago and not a rifle has arrived. This time around, what seems in the making is a mere pinprick, designed to be, one U.S. official told the Los Angeles Times, “just muscular enough not to get mocked.”
That’s why Dempsey is so glum. That’s why U.S. allies are so stunned. There’s no strategy, no purpose here other than helping Obama escape self-inflicted humiliation.
This is deeply unserious. Unless Obama can show the country that his don’t-mock-me airstrike is, in fact, part of a serious strategic plan, Congress should vote no.
John McCain changed the administration’s authorization resolution to include, mirabile dictu, a U.S. strategy in Syria: to alter the military equation (against Assad). Unfortunately, Obama is not known for being bound by what Congress passes (see, for example: health care, employer mandate).
When Obama tells the nation what he told McCain and Lindsey Graham in private — that he plans to degrade Assad’s forces, upgrade the resistance and alter the balance of forces — Congress might well consider authorizing the use of force. But until then, it’s no.
Andrew Malcolm shares his thoughts.
You probably could have anticipated this. When President Obama gets in trouble, he either has no idea about the wrongdoing (think IRS, FBI). Or it was someone else’s fault. (You-know-who from Texas.)
Now, we know that the red line statement Obama made as president 381 days ago about how any Syrian use of chemical weapons “would change my calculus” wasn’t really Obama’s fault.
According to Obama, although it looked just like the American president standing at the little podium with no teleprompter in the White House Briefing Room, that modest man was actually speaking on behalf of the entire world.
“I didn’t set a red line; the world set a red line,” Obama claims.
Also, you should know that just because the president of the United States threatened some vague response on Syria’s President Bashar Assad should he use chemical weapons does not now put Obama’s credibility on the line should nothing adverse, in fact, happen to Assad’s regime.
This, henceforth, shall be known as Chicago Logic. Through Obama’s hindsight, what’s on the line now is the credibility of the world, which has thrice decided through the United Nations to do nothing about Assad’s chemical use. Like the Arab League. And Britain’s Parliament, which voted to join the “No’s” last week.
Also what’s also on the line, Obama declared at a Wednesday Stockholm news conference, is the credibility of the United States Congress, which until a couple of days ago had no clue it had any role in Obama’s red line drawing almost 13 months ago. …
Ann Coulter has a point of view.
Oh, how I long for the days when liberals wailed that “the rest of the world” hated America, rather than now, when the rest of the world laughs at us.
With the vast majority of Americans opposing a strike against Syria, President Obama has requested that Congress vote on his powers as commander in chief under the Constitution. The president doesn’t need congressional approval to shoot a few missiles into Syria, nor — amazingly — has he said he’ll abide by such a vote, anyway.
Why is Congress even having a vote? This is nothing but a fig leaf to cover Obama’s own idiotic “red line” ultimatum to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria on chemical weapons. The Nobel Peace Prize winner needs to get Congress on the record so that whatever happens, the media can blame Republicans.
No Republican who thinks seriously about America’s national security interests — by which I mean to exclude John McCain and Lindsey Graham — can support Obama’s “plan” to shoot blindly into this hornet’s nest. …
Peter Wehner tries to square the “I didn’t draw the red line.” comments.
… In this particular case, the president seems to have dissociative amnesia, apparently having forgotten that a year ago last month he did, in fact, draw a red line. (Note the use of the first-person pronouns by the president — “That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.”) The president may have forgotten, too, that he promised that crossing this red line would be a “game changer” (it was not). That Assad had to go (Assad is still in power, stronger than before). That he promised to arm Syrian rebels (he hasn’t). That his “coalition of the willing” may include, if we’re lucky, one other country besides America. And that on the matter of the Use of Force Resolution he was against going to Congress before he was for going to Congress.
The cause of Mr. Obama’s dissociation appears to be the psychological trauma induced by his multi-year fiasco in Syria. And in order to cope, we are seeing signs of anger, petulance, and hero syndrome and, as is always the case with this president, blame shifting.
On a slightly more serious note, Mr. Obama’s presidency is being wrecked by reality. He’s being exposed at every turn, and in every crisis, as inept. He can’t handle that truth so he’s trying to distort it. …
More from Nile Gardiner in the Brit Telegraph.
… As Obama’s words made clear, he is himself 100 percent responsible for the ‘red line’ that has been laid down on Syria, a red line that he drew without much thought behind what it would entail. He made these remarks at the height of his presidential election campaign, after a year and a half of doing absolutely nothing about the crisis in Syria, no doubt in an effort to look tough and to demonstrate that he wasn’t ‘leading from behind.’
It is not America’s credibility that is on the line at the moment, or that of the United States Congress. It is the credibility of Barack Obama himself, who unwisely drew a line in the sand, and is now pushing for a military intervention in the Middle East without a clear strategy, while aggressively cutting defence spending and failing to demonstrate that a Syrian war is in the US national interest. And as I noted in an earlier piece, Mr. Obama is trying to drag America into war without the military support of key US allies, including Great Britain. The president has a grand coalition of two at present: himself and deeply unpopular French Socialist Francois Hollande. That is hardly an alliance that instills confidence at home, or fear into the hearts of America’s enemies abroad.