Plenty of nothing

Ana Marie Cox response to that line in the inaugural speech: “he could take my childish things after he pried them from my cold, dead hands.”

A couple of weeks ago, Obama said, “The loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern to me and after January 20, I’m going to have plenty to say about the issue.” And today in a speech at the State Dept, we got that plenty. He said, “we will always support Israel's right to defend itself against legitimate threats.” As opposed to the illegitimate threats, presumably. He went on, “For years, Hamas has launched thousands of rockets at innocent Israeli citizens. No democracy can tolerate such danger to its people”. “I was deeply concerned by the loss of Palestinian and Israeli life in recent days and by the substantial suffering and humanitarian needs in Gaza.” So the loss of Israeli life is attributed to Hamas rockets, the loss of Palestinian life and the substantial suffering etc is attributed to... well, I guess he forgot to attribute it to anyone. Funny, that. Giant meteorite? Volcano eruption? Giant robot invaders from Alpha Centauri?

Elsewhere in the speech, he used the phrase we’d been told was no longer operative, “the war on terror.”