A reader writes:
“The card Obama didn’t play“? Then what does this passage from Obama’s national address mean?
But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act.
It certainly isn’t as brazen as “fight em there so we don’t fight em here,” but it’s a difference of degree and emphasis, not kind.
I don’t care about the arguing over whether Obama bumbled here or there, and it’s tilting at windmills for me to be offended by using the good old “it’s for the children” emotional manipulation. But Obama still hasn’t explained how this enforcement of international norms is going to be upheld with some targeted bombings. In a specific way, this reminds me of the Bush justifications for Iraq: throw out every justification you can, see which one people will buy, and pretend that was the real reason all along.
Another reader:
I get Fallow’s point about using the emotionally-charged imagery of murdered children as talking points, but when it comes to Obama, I honestly doubt this is some mere political strategy. It seems to me that, as with gun control and Newtown, nothing so affects Obama as the murder of children. I think of his statement after Newtown and how raw and emotional he was.
His adoration for his own children can’t be denied, and a simple Google search can return a myriad of pictures of Obama interacting with children. Sure, these are photo ops, but time and again you can see an easiness, something that the aloof Obama doesn’t always achieve easily with adults.
He likes kids. I think above all things he considers himself a father. I think the preventable harm of children motivates him above all else. So I don’t think these are mere talking points to him.
I don’t either. But it should not have overwhelmed his strategic sense. Tough, I know. Almost inhuman. But that is what a moral man in an immoral society sometimes has to accept.
(Photo by Abu Amar Al Taftanaz/Getty. It was our Face of the Day last Thursday, a reminder that the Dish hasn’t looked away from the heartbreaking violence in Syria.)
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