Okay. I’ll read the transcript.
Can’t watch or even listen to a president Address The Country. Beginning with Reagan. George W. Bush was the clincher. For people who are sensitive to body language and oily prevarication, presidential speeches are torture. Bush’s face was one big lie even when he stumbled over the truth by mistake. He looked as though he felt guilty.
I don’t want to be conned. Just the facts, Mr. P.
But Andrew Sullivan makes it seem as though I should have listened/watched last night.
That was one of the clearest, simplest and most moving presidential speeches to the nation I can imagine. It explained and it argued, point after point. Everything the president said extemporaneously at the post-G20 presser was touched on, made terser, more elegant and more persuasive. …TheDish
Uh-oh. Maybe I should watch the video.
But no.
The key points: it is an abdication of America’s exceptional role in the world to look away from the horrific use of poison gas… TheDish
Can’t stand it. More of this exceptional American stuff.
But here’s where I agree wholeheartedly with Andrew Sullivan: We do have responsibilities and in Barack Obama we have the first president who accepts responsibility. …Even when it invites ridicule from his irresponsible political opposition.
I’m tired of the eye-rolling and the easy nit-picking of the president’s leadership on this over the last few weeks. The truth is: his threat of war galvanized the world and America, raised the profile of the issue of chemical weapons more powerfully than ever before, ensured that this atrocity would not be easily ignored and fostered a diplomatic initiative to resolve the issue without use of arms. All the objectives he has said he wanted from the get-go are now within reach, and the threat of military force – even if implicit – remains.
Yes, it’s been messy. A more cautious president would have ducked it. Knowing full well it could scramble his presidency, Obama nonetheless believed that stopping chemical weapons use is worth it – for the long run, and for Americans as well as Syrians. Putin understands this as well. Those chemical weapons, if uncontrolled, could easily slip into the hands of rebels whose second target, after Assad and the Alawites and the Christians, would be Russia. …TheDish
You’d think the political opposition in Washington would take this seriously, but whatever they do has to be in opposition to the President. But at least we have a president — finally! — that understands America’s international responsibilities and obligations instead of reminding the rest of the world about America’s power.
Yes, he’s still a community organizer. It’s just that now, the community he is so effectively organizing is the world. …TheDish
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Ezra Klein is somewhat skeptical.
The problem is that if the diplomatic path is going to work, Russia and Syria need to believe Obama’s threat to use force is credible. That means Obama needs to win enough public and congressional support that his threats remain credible. The result was an odd speech: One that had to make the case for war the administration was seeking on Sunday even as it pivoted towards the diplomatic solution the administration lucked into on Monday. …Klein,WaPo
I wondered how Obama would thread that needle: make a case for a diplomatic solution while keeping the war card up his sleeve. Klein expresses some disapproval.
If Obama’s diplomatic path works, Assad will begin destroying his chemical weapons even as he continues slaughtering the opposition with conventional weapons. The Obama administration hopes, of course, that that won’t happen — that the deal to disarm him will open negotiating space for a deal to end the conflict. But there’s no guarantee of that. France’s draft U.N. Security Council resolution — which the U.S. supports — is silent on Assad’s conventional weapons, and his use of them. That’s a silence no reasonable viewer would infer from Obama’s speech.
At this point, the White House has a surprisingly good plan to avoid war while achieving the limited goal of disarming Assad’s chemical arsenal. But it relies on them making a very bad argument for a much larger war with much broader, more humanitarian, objectives. …Klein,WaPo
The argument for war is always a bad argument. War is bad. Are we up for a drastic reduction in our military capabilities? Are we ready to step back, guarantee that we’ll never start another war? I wish we were…
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A majority of Americans who watched President Barack Obama’s prime time address to the nation on Tuesday said they favor the approach to Syria that the president spelled out in his speech, according to an instant poll.
But an exclusive CNN/ORC International survey of speech-watchers conducted immediately after the conclusion of Obama’s address also indicates that those who tuned into the address were split on whether the president made the case for military action against Syria.
Sixty percent of those questioned said it was not in the national interests of the U.S. to be involved in the bloody two year old Syrian civil war, and more than half said the speech did not change their confidence in the president’s leadership on military and international issues.
According to the poll, 61% said they support the president’s position on Syria, with 37% saying they oppose his response to the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons against its own citizens. …CNN