With no deal in place, no vote scheduled in Congress, and no action underway at the United Nations, President Barack Obama still intends to address the nation on Syria. He will probably:
1. Claim that threatening to use force has won some sort of deal
2. Claim that things are on track.
3. Claim that his world-changing diplomacy is the wave of the future.
Reality: He answered a hypothetical question with his “red line” comment a year ago, bringing us to the brink of intervening in Syria’s civil war now. His actions have created a fiasco and made himself a laughing stock.
Maybe he can get out of this somehow. The Won does seem to have nine lives.
I’ll be flipping back and forth between his speech and the much more important action on ESPN, as the US Men’s National Team hosts Mexico in a critical World Cup qualifier.
Update: Well, that was a whole lotta nothin’. President Obama gave pretty much the same speech he would have given before today’s whirlwind events. It was pretty much the same speech he gave on Saturday. Assad’s bad, we should hit him, but not so hard that it makes him lose the civil war.
Obama did manage to make me miss the opening goal in the USMNT qualifier versus Mexico. So there’s that.
Update: Here is a transcript of his speech.
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