How’s this for hubris: President Obama extolling his “new strategy” in Iraq — even though it never would have succeeded had his original vision prevailed?
The president struck a triumphal tone this week about the Iraq mission coming to an end — but shunned the word “success.” He spoke of “ending” the war, but took pains to avoid context.
Sen. John McCain rightly called the address “small-minded” and “bizarre.”
Indeed, Obama couldn’t bring himself to give a shred of credit to the man who most deserves it: George W. Bush.
Bush’s surge — and Gen. David Petraeus’ on-the-ground leadership — created the conditions for Iraqis to take full control of their country, allowing Obama last year to introduce his “new strategy.”
At the time, then-Sen. Barack Obama said of the surge: “20,000 troops is not going to make a difference.”
A year later, he responded to Bush’s State of the Union Address by declaring that “tonight we heard President Bush say that the surge in Iraq is working, when we know that’s just not true.”
Obama’s lack of graciousness even barred him from noting that his speech occurred 20 years to the day after the invasion of Kuwait. He couldn’t offer even a small nod to the first President George Bush, who led the liberation of Kuwait.
But that’s a minor quibble measured against Obama’s overweening hypocrisy.
He scorned the strategy that produced the outcome he’s now celebrating with a straight face. And he won’t say one kind word about his predecessor, no matter how warranted.
If any president has shown less class than Obama, it’s hard to say who.