Exceptionalism, with humility

President Obama's speech last night was a strange one. The administration's strategy of speaking out of both sides of its mouth on Syria continues. (This is a narrow, punitive mission...motivated by broad, humanitarian concerns such a mission won't really address.)

Stranger still was the fact that Obama gave the speech at all. He spent most of it trying to sell the war in Syria, then pivoted to saying essentially not yet: first we're going to try this new diplomatic path that, somewhat bizarrely, presented itself this week. So why not cancel/delay the speech? As Ross Douthat points out, "there is no rule saying that a president must speak when he’s announced that he will speak if significant events intervene."

Then there was the moment when Obama explained the Kerry/Russia diplomacy plan and then said this: "I have, therefore, asked the leaders of Congress to postpone a vote to authorize the use of force while we pursue this diplomatic path." Translation: this new development gave Obama an excuse to stop whipping a vote he was likely going to lose, anyway. After all, if he believes what he said about the military needing to "maintain their current posture to keep the pressure on Assad," why not go ahead with the vote to make them look that much more intimidating? If he could win it, he would.