“I will concede that you are almost always right (no joke). However, I don’t agree that a year from now the “American public will have a vague idea that about a year earlier something happened sometime to someone in Syria, but what and when and where and why they are not quite sure.” When you talk like that, you sound like a condescending liberal Democrat who believes people are, by their nature, immoral and dumb, and that is why we need a gazillion laws enacted by a benevolent government run by brilliant Democrat politicians, like His Highness Obama, bolstered by even more brilliant academicians and supported by the “oh-so-much-smarter-than-everyone-else” liberal media, when you assume the American public is immoral and stupid, and will forget that chemical weapons were used on innocent civilians, including women and children. I’m a member of the American public. I won’t forget. I don’t even think my friends, many of whom are members of the American public and no dumber than I am, will forget either. So please, don’t generalize and don’t stoop to the level of a Progressive. It’s beneath you.”
The Reply:
Dear Angry Reader,
Calm down. Do not search for offense when there is nothing to be found. My observation was empirical not condemnatory. The fact is that Syria—the existential crisis of the year just 3 weeks ago—has disappeared from the news. It ended with a whimper not a bang. The president never mentions Syria these days. There is no grass-roots public movement to do or not do anything about it. The public has almost no idea about what the civil war is about, or who is fighting whom, and believes (rightly) that we have enough problems without blowing stuff up and killing people in Syria to prevent both sides from blowing stuff up and killing people. A year from now, Syria will be about as much on the public mind as is now the coup in Egypt, the Somaliazation of Libya, the postbellum status in Iraq, etc. Of course, the ultimate arbiter is fact, not opinion. In September 2014, we shall see to what degree the American people are engaged with the Syria Civil War and recall the circumstances of the almost bombing of 2013 to restore the president’s credibility over a redline.
