On Tuesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney pushed back against public opinion, praising “the result of [President Barack Obama’s] consistency” in his dealings with Syria’s chemical weapons.
Speaking to reporters, Carney said, “What matters here is the result, and the result is that the positions the president took — both in his negotiations and his consultations, and his public presentations — helped produce the result that we see today, which is the possibility that we can achieve the goal of military force, and then some, without the use of military force, by relieving Assad of his chemical weapons and destroying them.”
“That’s far more significant than, you know, assessments about how it looked as it unfolded,” Carney continued. “What’s important is the result — and the result of his consistency has been the potential for a diplomatic breakthrough.”
Tuesday’s presser comes on the heels of sharp criticism — even from liberal allies — of Obama’s messaging regarding U.S. military intervention in the midst of the Syrian civil war.