Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer had some fun with President Barack Obama’s Monday statement that there is no “complete strategy” to combat ISIS in the Middle East.
Appearing on “Special Report,” Krauthammer told host Bret Baier that Obama committed a Michael Kinsley gaffe, saying that he “occasionally stumbles on the truth.” The conservative commentator also wondered how, in pure amazement, people could actually believe Obama has a strategy when he says he indeed does not at this point.
BRET BAIER: Is this a traditional Washington gaffe, the Michael Kinsley gaffe?
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Obama occasionally stumbles on the truth and this is a Kinsley gaffe in which he said the truth. 71 percent of Americans knew it even before he said it. You have to wonder what are the other 19 percent thinking who think he has a strategy when he admits he doesn’t.
John McCain had the best line. He said when Obama says he doesn’t have a complete strategy, perhaps he will tell us what his incomplete strategy — a partial strategy, any idea of a strategy is and the answer is there’s nothing here. The reason is Obama’s entire strategy rests on the notion that trained Iraqis under this government are going to carry the fight to ISIS. They tried it in Mosul. They tried it in Ramadi, in Fallujah, and they keep — as General Dempsey said, they weren’t driven out of Ramadi. They drove out of Ramadi! The idea that it’s a lack of training — it’s obviously what [Secretary of Defense] Ashton Carter said, a lack of will.
Obama delicately said we have a focus problem. The Iraqis — they are not ready, they are not trainable, they are not showing up to be recruited, and they have to be more focused — focused for it to work. Can you imagine FDR saying, you know, the problem with allies against Hitler is the Russians and the British are is they are not focused on the war against Germany. this is a country that was abandoned by Obama in 2011, and threw in its lot with other players, and now we are trying to reclaim that. It cannot be done.