There is much to pick over in President Obama’s Nobel lecture, needless to say. And one can be too picky, too. In any case, I spend a little time — just a little — on the lecture today in Impromptus. And I single out that notorious sentence, “I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war.” I say I especially love that word “definitive” — it suggests that Obama might have some other, not-quite-definitive solution to that ancient conumdrum of war.

A scholar friend of mine writes me to say, “You know what I found most astounding about that line? The ‘today’ part. Maybe tomorrow? The whole line is definitive delusionary Obama.”