Obama's Last Laugh

The pundits on the left are still bellyaching that President Barack Obama was willing to bomb Syria. The pundits on the right are outraged at the president's weakness for consulting Congress, AND for not bombing Syria (yet).

Obama seems content to let them all opine.

My sense of what Obama is more concerned with is how historians will tell the story of managing to avoid starting another war in the Middle East. And, how America and Russia got Syria's outlaw government to admit to hording poison gas weapons, AND to be willing to give them up.

How will historians regard a president who got America out of two wars -- Iraq and Afghanistan? How will they regard a president who avoided war with Syria and Iran? How will they regard a president who brought America back from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression? How will they regard a president who was the first president to do anything important about health care for America's workforce in decades?

And, how will historians regard a president who did all that, in spite of the obstruction and sabotage the Republicans have hurled at him since he took office?

If the crazy Congressional Republicans do choose to renege on payments due, by not raising the debt ceiling, right wing pundits may applaud. But who thinks any historians will give them high marks for such mischief?

So I’m laughing at today’s know-it-all pundits. And, I suspect there are some folks who work at the White House who are laughing, too.