Obama Talks About Terrorism and Demagoguery

“So this was an act of terrorism, designed to kill innocent people,” President Barack Obama said near the beginning of his speech, delivered from the Oval Office on Sunday night, in response to the shooting in San Bernardino. Obama looked tired as he began, and the address, despite moments of real feeling, had a certain built-in weariness. When it comes to gun violence, the President believes—as he said last Wednesday, after Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik killed fourteen people with semi-automatic assault rifles that had been purchased legally, and said again last night—that there are very easy and effective things he could do to help if only Congress would let him, which it won’t. When it comes to terrorism, there are things that are very hard that he is nonetheless trying to do, he keeps telling people (“Since the day I took this office, I’ve authorized U.S. forces to take out terrorists abroad. … For over a year, I have ordered our military to take thousands of airstrikes” against the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham), even as politicians in both parties talk about destroying ISIS as if it were a matter of simple will, which Obama somehow lacked. This is particularly true of those running for President.