Maybe my processing of the English language isn't what it used to be, but I'm having a hard time making sense of the headline at David Espo's and Julie Pace's report (saved here at host for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, on President Obama's Syria speech tonight.
The headline? "OBAMA DELAYS SYRIA VOTE, SAYS DIPLOMACY MAKE WORK." Huh? If the last three words are "Make Diplomacy Work," that's better, but not by all that much, because it looks like he's giving orders to others, when he and his administration are the ones who have to make it work. Several paragraphs from the AP pair's report follow the jump (boids are mine):
President Barack Obama said in a nationally televised address Tuesday night that recent diplomatic steps offer "the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons" inside Syria without the use of force, but he also insisted the U.S. military will keep the pressure on President Bashar Assad "and be ready to respond" if other measures fail.
Speaking from the East Room of the White House, Obama said he had asked congressional leaders to postpone a vote on legislation he has been seeking to authorize the use of military force against Syria.
Acknowledging the weariness the nation feels after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama said, "America is not the world's policeman."
And yet, he added, "When with modest effort and risk we can stop children from being gassed to death and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That's what makes America different. That's what makes us exceptional."
Did you see that? The guy who said that there's nothing really uniquely exceptional about America four years ago, saying that people in other countries think their nations are exceptional too, is now talking uniquely American exceptionalism.
A humorist — or is it a realist? — might suggest that the AP headline is as bad as it is because they had to write it on their own on short notice. You see, they've gotten out of practice writing them on their own without Obama administration "assistance."
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
