He should have canceled the speech. It was halfhearted, pro forma and strange. It added nothing, did not deepen or advance the story, was not equal to the atmosphere surrounding it, and gave no arguments John Kerry hasn’t made, often more forcefully, in the past 10 days.
It was a time filler: The White House had asked for the time and had to fill it. But at this point in the president’s Syria drama an indifferent piece of work only underscores the overall impression that things just aren’t working that well in the White House.
It is hard to believe a lot of people watched. It’s hard to believe hearts were changed.
I was afraid he was going to do “foaming at the mouth”, “blood and hair,” “gasping for breath” and “writhing in pain.” Presidents shouldn’t say words and phrases like that. He should have referred listeners and viewers to the easily available and highly graphic documentation of the attacks, and simply characterized them as the painful thing they are. You’re trying to influence and persuade, you’re not trying to make people lean away, or remind them that repeats of “Law & Order SVU” are on Channel 47.
Another problem, and there’s no nice way to say this: It is hard to believe such a chill man has such warm feelings about the sad end of strangers far away. I think this has been one of his big unspoken problems in the selling of his Syria policy. It is based to some degree on his emotional indignation, and it is not fully credible because it’s hard to believe he’s so moved.
On the policy: A problem with the limited, targeted strike or strikes that he speaks of is that nobody knows—literally, nobody knows—exactly how strong Bashar Assad is. Nobody knows what position he is really in. A man who uses weapons of mass destruction may simply be a monster. On the other hand he may be a monster who has reason to fear he’s losing. He may be a vulnerable monster. And a targeted strike not meant to take him out, may take him out. Which will summon a new version of hell.
The president is looking into Russia’s recent proposal, which is among recent “encouraging signs” that have “potential.”
They ought to go back to giving major addresses in the Oval Office, because it has a mystique and stature that it lends to those who sit at the big desk. The president’s staffers apparently think the Oval is tired, or insufficiently groovy, or something. They have him stand at a podium and talk into an empty room under Bela Lugosi lighting. The groovelocity of this choice is lost on me.