After a week of golf and general dithering on Iran, President Barack Obama finally realized what most everyone else has known for the better part of a century: The world's bully pulpit belongs to the President of the United States. Not the President of France and not the German Chancellor.
POTUS. Period.
Obama appeared befuddled by events in Iran since the demonstrations began following a disputed ballot in which the Iranian government claimed that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been re-elected.
Maybe he was, but the government pulled out all of its anti-freedom assets - the army, the police, and the militia - to brutalize the demonstrators.
Ultimately the situation was brought into HD focus by the cell-phone video showing a young woman shot and dying on a Tehran street.
All week long, Democratic strategists swarmed the cable news chat shows having to defend Obama's weak performance by saying the U.S. should not "meddle" in the internal affairs of Iran.
For his part, the best Obama could come up with as recently as last Tuesday (three days into the demonstrations was:
"I do believe that something has happened in Iran where there is a questioning of the kinds of antagonistic postures towards the international community that have taken place in the past."
Go ahead. Read it again. Does that sound like a strong leader; confident in his abilities, comfortable in his choices, convinced of his course?
I. Don't. Think. So.
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