• Hillary Clinton has a new book out. At this point what difference does it make?
• President Obama gave a commencement address at West Point, which he meant as a defense of his foreign policy. It read instead as a compendium of general principles; it might have been given by any president over the last 60 years. American leadership underpins world stability and advances liberation. Peace and enlarging freedom work to our interests as a commercial nation. We will use force, even unilaterally, when we must, but we should also rely on alliances and robust international organizations such as NATO (yes) and the U.N. (well . . .). The greatest threat we face today is terrorism from spin-offs of al-Qaeda. Obama’s one flat-out wrong argument was a riff on leading by example: The examples he chose were climate control, signing the Law of the Sea Treaty, and closing Gitmo. This passage was a celebration of ineffectual gestures. But speeches, especially surveys such as this, do not shimmer in a void. They draw their force from the record of the speaker. After five years this president succeeds only at leaving: Iraq, Afghanistan. Bad actors seek to follow in his wake: Iran, Russia, China, North Korea. They scorn the most eloquent words. Better a president who was silent — but strong.
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