Professor Ditherton Wiggleroom

Stephen Green calls President Obama "Professor Ditherton Wiggleroom." He reminds us of what Obama said in 2012:

"We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation."

Congress made him say that. Treaties made him say that. And 98% of the whole wide world forced Professor Wiggleroom to explicitly state that he might have to reassign some math homework if some bad stuff happened or appeared to be maybe about to happen. Or something.

To which I ask, “Professor Wiggleroom, where is that 98% of the world?”

We have France, sort of. The United States military, if the order is given. And nobody else, including the American people, really seems to give a rat’s ass what happens in Syria. Maybe they would, if Wiggleroom had — oh, I dunno — actually led on this issue a year ago. Gone to the UN, gone to Congress, hit the bully pulpit, built a coalition. Little things, like that Cowboy Diplomatist did during his 14-month “rush to war” in Iraq. Instead, Wiggleroom finds himself in the uncomfortable and unaccustomed position of having to lead from the front — and there’s nobody behind him but France, looking nervously for the exit. The president who loves to talk has talked himself into a war — and almost nobody else.

Now Wiggleroom is trying to shift the blame on the GOP half of Congress for approving a war (even though they may not), to pin the blame on treaties for requiring a war (even though they don’t), and to place the blame on world opinion for demanding a war (even though nobody is). But the blame, the responsibility rests solely on the shoulders of a president who would order better men to their deaths for the noble cause of removing his foot from his mouth.