Here are three headlines from three different newspapers, all referring to the same press conference, held by President Obama at the White House on August 28, 2014 to explain his administration’s conduct of military operations against ISIS—or, as he insists on calling the terrorist heirs to al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria, ISIL:
“We don’t have a strategy yet”: Obama stuns Washington by admitting he is clueless about tackling ISIS —Daily Mail
Obama: U.S. doesn’t “have a strategy yet” to comprehensively respond to Islamic State —The Washington Post
Obama Urges Calm in Face of Crises in Ukraine and Syria —The New York Times
And those crazy right-wingers keep talking about “media bias”! At least the Post, after congratulating him for his forthrightness—“rarely has a president spoken so plainly”—provided a helpful sidebar offering to explain to its presumptively baffled readers, “Why Obama’s ‘We don’t have a strategy’ gaffe stings.” Aaron Blake wrote that “as with all gaffes, the worst ones are the ones that confirm people’s pre-existing suspicions or fit into an easy narrative. That’s why ‘47 percent’ stung Mitt Romney so much, and it’s why ‘don’t have a strategy’ hurts Obama today.” Then, after a survey of polls showing a recent balance of disapproval of the President’s lack of toughness and poor management skills, Mr. Blake went on to note that
Republicans, meanwhile, have criticized Obama for years as being reactive rather than proactive, often using the “leading from behind”
