Making PotUS be PotUS.

The President must be held accountable.

Yesterday, President Obama provided the country with a speech on Iraq that was distinctly… unedifying. Underwhelming. The sort of speech that you track down the text online, read it, and wait to see if the speaker at least makes an embarrassing verbal gaffe or two. Still, Bill Kristol gave it good marks, for a given value of “good marks:”

President Obama opposed the war in Iraq. He still thinks it was a mistake. It’s therefore unrealistic for supporters of the war to expect the president to give the speech John McCain would have given, or to expect President Obama to put the war in the context we would put it in. He simply doesn’t believe the war in Iraq was a necessary part of a broader effort to fight terror, to change the Middle East, etc. Given that (erroneous) view of his, I thought his speech was on the whole commendable, and even at times impressive.

I happen to largely agree with Bill Kristol about the war in Iraq. But he’s wrong here to (as Hot Air put it) grade the President on the curve accordingly.

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