The overselling of bombing Syria demonstrates how stupid the admin thinks

[MisterP]

25. one minute they're lordly World Control, hand-in-glove with the media, defanging and veal-penning

some of their savviest erstwhile critics, walking back every promise in favor of GOP policies while subtly managing the reactions (either diluting a reaction, or just insisting that we got the best deal we could within the limits of plausible deniability), their fingers literally on the pulse of communications--and half a week later it's all in shambles and they're smashing hard drives with little pieces flying around

such a fall causes individual and collective mental backlash, and hence equally-large actions to compensate

this is actually the same pattern Reagan followed: media fawning (it's different with Obama, but replace "media" with "Bush critics" or what-have-you) and partisan bickering over big issues, then the mask falls off with Eugene Hasenfus late in Year Six and the cult figure leaves in disgrace and with ratings freefalling toward 40%