Obama to address the nation!

President Obama will address the nation tonight…about what he doesn’t seem to know. He’s relatively sure what he wants to do has historic meaning, that he’s standing up for values the civilized world should hold dear (we tend to frown on the purposeful slaughter of innocents by tyrants), but he’s woefully unsure about what exactly it is he should do. So far he has drawn a “RED LINE” that Assad must not cross and when Assad crossed it, President Obama started thinking the NRA was on to something and decided to pass out some guns to Syrian rebels.

I’d like to think at that point the president saw how some rebels thought beheading a priest was a good idea, and therefore changed his mind about arming the rebels, but it appears more likely that his heart (and his head) wasn’t in it from the get-go. Then the RED LINE was crossed ON TV(!) which, of course, required a presidential response. So the President urged Britain to give them one. The Brits passed.

So what we got instead was a Benny Hill-like skit in which Secretary Kerry, Secretary Hagel, the President and all the president’s men started contradicting each other and sending out mixed signals, finally culminating in a blunt message to Assad and all other would-be enemies of the United States and basic humanity: Avoid genocide or slaughter of civilians or face a shot across the bow of unbelievably small proportions!

Faced with the dual incentive of humiliating the United States AND the realization that the more humiliated we became the more humiliating it is that the Russians actually lost the Cold War to us, Vladimir Putin stepped in and took Secretary Kerry up on his “offer” to give Assad a chance to give up his used chemical weapons and continue slaughtering people with plain, old conventional weapons.

Facing a Congress as excited about authorizing force against Syria as they were to have to live under Obamacare without a special exemption, President Obama is now left to grab Putin’s lifeline and take credit for having “forced” the situation through the threat of an unbelievably small, limited, non-game changing, shot-across-the bow, extremely short military action.

President Obama now wants to address the nation and tell us what is going on. One wonders if the networks will give the Russians equal time so that we can actually find out.

 

UPDATE: To “FormerMarineSgt” and anybody else who feels the same way: “High and mighty”–why? Because I’m observing the chaos and am willing to say it? And where’s the “bile”? As I’ve said before I WANT Obama to succeed in his dealings with Syrian dictators, the Russians, the Iranians, the Chinese and other adversaries of the United States. It is in the interest of this NATION that the president not screw up and undermine confidence in American power. That said, it’d be nice if the President had felt the same way about Bush. Also, I don’t claim to be “unbiased”–I freely confess to sharing my opinion. I try to remain objective (being able to see the good and bad in my side and others) so that I can call it as I see it. Since Charlie Rangel has confessed embarrassment about the President’s handling of Syria, I don’t think I’m too far off the mark.