He Needs to Talk With His Employees

While it is certainly true that the administration mishandled the whole "Syria thing," and more or less bumbled into the best possible resolution, the confusion on the right is almost fun to watch.

The anything-Obama-does-is-wrong bloviaters on the cable networks, especially Fox, are having a cow because Putin seems to have saved the day for us. Here is what Roger Ailes, the head of Fox "News" is quoted as saying in 2012.

Putin is angry. He thinks the United States doesn’t take him seriously or treat Russia as a major player. Okay, fine, that’s how he feels. If I were president, I’d get in a room with him and say, ‘Look at the slaughter going on in Syria. You can stop it. Do it, and I’ll see to it that you can get all the credit. I’ll tell the world it was you who saved the innocent children of Syria from slaughter. You’ll be an international hero. You’ll go down in history.’ Hell, Putin would go to bed thinking, ‘That’s not a bad offer.’ There will still be plenty of other issues I’d have with Russia. But instead of looking for one huge deal that settles everything, you take a piece of the problem and solve it. Give an incentive for good behavior. Show the other guy his self-interest. Everybody has an ego. Everybody needs dignity. And what does it cost? You get what you want you give up nothing.