(WSJ) Mr. Obama is engaging in sophistry. By his logic, if America lacks the capacity to intervene everywhere there is ethnic killing, it has no obligation to intervene anywhere–and perhaps an obligation to intervene nowhere. His reasoning elevates consistency into the cardinal virtue, making the perfect the enemy of the good.
Sophistry? He’s a politician. They’re all sophists. The difference between Obama and Bush is that Obama is a trained sophist and doesn’t say stupid shit like “nucular” and “We need to prioritize those things in building our infrastructure, and when I say we need to prioritize, I mean we need to make this a priority.”
And to the point: Reason is the cardinal virtue. The Founding Fathers never envisioned a country that took the position that it could attack anyone anywhere for any reason without provocation or just cause. That would have been anathema. The country they declared their independence from was that country. It seems we’ve come full circle.
Therefore, we should beat up on Obama.
Mr. Taranto goes on to tell how Saigon fell because America pulled out of Vietnam. Had America never been involved in Vietnam in the first place then Siagon may never have fallen. History would have been different and we’d not be talking about how we lost a war we never should have been in.
Here’s a clue: It wasn’t our fight. But then again, what does reason have to do with it? We’re America. We do what we want. Might makes right.
