The Obama administration has three tried and true ways of dealing with crises. First, they blame others. Now seven years into his regime of shame, Obama is still trying to blame George Bush for everything. Second, they gaslight, that is they tell you against all evidence that something is working. Just this week, the White House claimed that its Iraq policy was working. I mean, who is the press going to believe? Their own lying eyes? Or the word of their master? Third, they demand what the questioner would do. This last one, in particular, is juvenile in the extreme. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what the critic would do. That isn’t even an issue. The issue is what the administration is doing.

As a sign of how bad things are going, the administration has gone from gaslighting to “hey, what’s your plan” in just two days. For instance:

Watching conservative pundits and politicians fumble over whether the United States should have invaded Iraq 12 years ago makes clear just how divided and unsure Republicans are about what they would do differently. When one peels away the rhetoric, what they advocate largely resembles the policies of the president they claim is such a failure: Barack Obama.

“War lessons for the GOP,” the May 19 op-ed column by Michael Gerson, one of conservatism’s brightest minds, is a case in point. After conceding in hindsight that the Iraq invasion was a mistake (a view that many of us who supported the war now admit but that Obama got right at the time), Gerson says we should apply the hard lessons of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan moving forward, then goes on to fault Obama for a policy of “retrenchment and retreat,” “chronic indecision” and “weakness.” So what policy would embody the opposite of these traits?

This is sort of an epic version of the “what would you do differently” attack as it has elements of gaslighting involved. If you say our policy should avoid “chronic indecision”, etc.,  this assclown (who, by the way is in no small measure for the unmitigated chaos in the Middle East)  says:

All of that accurately describes Obama’s approach. Today the U.S. military has as many as 3,000 troops in Iraq helping to train security forces and more than 35,000 military personnel in the Persian Gulf to reassure and work with our partners. For nearly a year, U.S. warplanes have bombed targets every day in Iraq and Syria — nearly 3,000 airstrikes so far — and Special Operations forces engage against terrorist targets, as last weekend’s raid into Syria proved. In the past few weeks, Washington has begun military training of the Syrian opposition at a cost of $500­ million. And the United States is partnering with other countries; today European allies are contributing to the Iraqi air campaign and training mission, and Arab states (and Canada) are part of the strikes in Syria.