Has Barack Obama unofficially resigned? We wouldn’t get that lucky – at least not until he can figure out how the AACA effects his retirement healthcare. It only seems that way because of some White House Mouth of Sauron’s response to Vladimir Putin’s New York Times Op-Ed.

“That’s all irrelevant,” the White House official said in response. “He put this proposal forward and he’s now invested in it. That’s good. That’s the best possible reaction. He’s fully invested in Syria’s CW disarmament and that’s potentially better than a military strike – which would deter and degrade but wouldn’t get rid of all the chemical weapons. He now owns this*. He has fully asserted ownership of it and he needs to deliver.”

While no one in Washington, DC actually used the term “Unconditional Surrender,” announcing that President Putin now owns the Syrian Crisis is right up there with “I didn’t draw that red line.” It’s peace in our time to the 2nd power. I doubt Neville Chamberlain publically presented Chancellor Hitler with a key and a title deed to The Sudetenland.

Of course President Obama has wanted someone else to own this situation with the fierce urgency of now that you’d have encountered amongst nervous house-flippers in Early 2007. This became evident with each passing day that the House Whip Count on a proposed authorization for use of force in Syria looked worse than the regular season record of The Houston Astros. It became increasingly evident as Secretary of State John Kerry got told where to go file his paperwork on Capitol Hill. If they had hurt The Honorable John Kerry’s feelings any worse, he’d have put in for yet another Purple Heart.

I’m obviously no fan of the So-Called Obama Administration. If their talent pool got any shallower, I’d have to pee in it to fill it back. Yet even when he reaches the correct decision here, and slowly backs away from the stupid, he isn’t able to do so without humiliating the nation he leads and slinking away from professional responsibility like a whipped cur skulking down a trash-strewn alley.

With the exception of Syrian Butcher-In-Chief Hafez Al-Assad’s decision to join the US side in Gulf War I, Russia pretty much has owned the ongoing crisis that is Syria. A brief perusal of the TOE of any Syrian Army unit would confirm that unkind conjecture. Yet to formalize it and be glad of such a fact is the hallmark of subservient international weakness.

President Putin threatens President Obama as follows towards the end of his NYT victory-lap around The American People.

And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.

Putin closes with the following obligatory niceness to his newly-minted vassal.

We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

It’s just that those who run their mouths making implausible threats and then demonstrate complete and utter tomfoolery in their efforts to back them up don’t stay equal for very long. The next Barack Obama “Mea Culpa” tour should involve his contrite apologies to anyone who would like The United States of America to again return to the status of being an exceptional nation. When we threaten action loudly and then abdicate to others a few minutes before the fisticuffs erupt, Vladamir Putin is insultingly correct. We no longer have a whole heck of a lot to feel exceptional about anymore.

* – bolding courtesy of RMJ…