In other words, he’s sounds better and better on airstrikes.
President Obama was sent to the White House on promises of being different from his predecessor. But of late, he’s sounding a lot like George W. Bush.
“America does not forget. Our reach is long. We are patient. Justice will be done,” Obama said this week when discussing the threat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria poses to U.S. citizens.
The phrasing was reminiscent of Bush’s remarks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when he said “whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.”
White House officials were quick to point out that rhetorical flourishes aside, Obama and Bush have fundamentally different visions about the use of American forces in the Middle East. Obama, who was first elected by arguing that Bush’s war in Iraq was a mistake, has called for avoiding messy foreign entanglements.
But the success of ISIS militants scrambled those arguments, pushing Obama into a more offensive posture in Iraq and considering expanding into airstrikes in Syria.
Once Obama’s range of options changed, so did his rhetoric. For some, the echoes were unmistakeable.
“George W. Obama?” quipped a former senior administration official in the Bush administration. “I certainly had a bit of deja vu there.”
Liberals, in particular, are wary of mission creep in the Middle East and say that such rallying cries must be accompanied by the messy details often left out of presidential addresses.
“The key question, obviously, is what does ‘justice will be done’ mean?” one Democratic House aide told the Washington Examiner. “That’s a great applause line, but we have to see the fine print, too.”