Sunday Roundup

This week saw President Obama take his anemic case for military strikes against Syria to Congress. Just how anemic was made clear on Monday as Secretary of State Kerry ominously warned that the U.S. was facing a "Munich moment." It was a comparison every bit as absurd and insulting as the "mushroom cloud" metaphor brandished by Condoleezza Rice and President Bush in the fall of 2002. But this time the fear-mongering fell flat, as the Coalition of the Unwilling continued to grow throughout the week. In response, the president announced he would speak to the country on Tuesday, to "make the best case that I can to the American people." A good start would be jettisoning the over-the-top scare tactics. Addressing the overwhelming unpopularity of the proposed strikes, the president declared "these kinds of actions are always unpopular, because they seem distant and removed." But he got it backwards. The unpopularity is precisely because the blowback from poorly-conceived military actions no longer seems distant or removed.