After carving out four distinct positions yesterday on the Syrian chemical weapons disarmament deal, President Obama appeared to backtrack to number 3 today during his primetime address, making it very much an afterthought in a speech that appeared to mostly go back to last week’s arguments for attacking Syria.
Though mentioned as something to be pursued at the UN, the chemical weapons deal was only mentioned some 10 minutes into the brief speech, after reiterating his case for war and promising “no boots on the ground.”
The lack of new arguments is conspicuous, particularly with President Obama promising that after tonight’s speech Americans would “want to attack Syria,” and then rehashing arguments that have an overwhelming majority of Americans opposed to the war.
The president capped off the speech by claiming that he is now supporting a Congressional delay of the votes authorizing the war, though of course those delays already came simply because he didn’t have the votes.
