Is Obama Man or Mouse asks Gene Lyons

[mooseandsquirrel]

As October arrives, all Washington is aquiver with anticipation over the Obama administration's first autumn theatrical season. The theme, of course, is forever the same: Geopolitical melodrama. The eternal foreign policy "crisis" remains our capital's only indigenous art form. The capital's political pundits function as drama critics.

Deadly threats loom from third-world outposts on the far side of the world. Cartoonish despots like Iran's Ahmadinejad -- the Persian George Wallace -- orate at the United Nations, playing the nationalist firebrand for audiences in Tehran. The requisite chorus of hairy-chested American columnists and TV commentators chant fierce war cries from comfortably appointed studios.

This Obama: Is he man or mouse? Never mind that Iran notified the International Atomic Energy Agency of its newest nuclear facility, insists (dubiously) that it's for peaceful purposes and promised to admit inspectors. We've seen this movie a dozen times. This latest iteration, opines the Washington Post's Richard Cohen, "is the real crisis, possibly one that can only end in war."

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