Stockholm Syndrome Versus the President's Persistent Possessive Determiner

“In Stockholm, Obama Loses Touch with Reality,” Peter Wehner wrote earlier this week at Commentary, though I’d argue it happened long, long before that (and with plenty of help from his courtesans in the MSM):

Most presidents, having presided over the Syrian debacle, would be chastened. But not the Great and Mighty Obama. He’s decided to begin to rewrite history so that he emerges as the hero.

Consider what Mr. Obama, in Stockholm earlier today, said in response to a question about Syria:

First of all, I didn’t set a red line. The world set a red line. The world set a red line when governments representing 98 percent of the world’s population said the use of chemical weapons are abhorrent and passed a treaty forbidding their use, even when countries are engaged in war. Congress set a red line when it ratified that treaty. Congress set a red line when it indicated that in a piece of legislation entitled the Syria Accountability Act that some of the horrendous things happening on the ground there need to be answered for. So, when I said in a press conference that my calculus about what’s happening in Syria would be altered by the use of chemical weapons, which the overwhelming consensus of humanity says is wrong, that wasn’t something I just kind of made up. I didn’t pluck it out of thin air. There’s a reason for it.

The president added this:

My credibility is not on the line. The international community’s credibility is on the line and America and Congress’s credibility is on the line because we give lip service to the notion that these international norms are important.

So literally everyone else in the world is to blame except the president.

Though while everyone else in the world may to blame for Syria, Obama assures us today that “my military” will set things right:

For the second time in about a week, President Obama referred to the military as his own personal property, this time while speaking at the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, Twitchy reported Friday.

Obama made the comment in response to a question from a reporter about whether or not he would unilaterally strike Syria if Congress voted against him.

“My military assured me we could act today, tomorrow, a month from now; That we could do so proportionally, but meaningfully,” he said.

A number of people took exception to Obama’s use of the phrase “my military,” and made their feelings known on Twitter.

“Isn’t it the world’s military?” asked the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto.

“Red flags shld be going up here ppl,” another person tweeted.

“Again with the ‘my’ military…come on Mr. President. It is not yours any more than the desk you prop your foot on is yours,” tweeted “Mark Prosser.”

Note that this isn’t the first time in the past seven days that Obama has used that particular possessive determiner. I wonder how it’s playing with those inside “his” military, who will required to bail out a president whose mouth “has been writing checks that it looks like his body politic can’t cash,” Glenn Reynolds wrote earlier this week.

But what if he does cash that check?

Obama’s problem is that if he does bomb Syria, it will either do nothing much — underscoring his irrelevance — or it will topple Assad, which will likely lead to an Islamist Syria hostile to the United States. He really shouldn’t have departed from the teleprompter with that “Red Line” comment.

Indeed.™ In the meantime, Forward!