Our first child had autism. Which was then a sort of mystery. Or worse because the leading theory was that a child's autism had been caused by its unfeeling mother.

Around 1960 this began changing and one of reasons was the work of a British psychologist who said of course mothers aren't perfect, who is? But mostly they're good enough.

In that sense, I thought Obama,tonight, was "good enough". He didn't promise a "crusade" (thank God) and in fact one reasonable response to his speech could be "What else is new?" Essentially he said we'll be doing more of the same, but better.

That's OK with me.

Furthermore.

What's OK with me is not what he intends to do. It's what tonight he said  he was going to do . If he ultimately  does " something else"  (i.e. "boots on the ground").,so be it. That's going to depend on what happens.But until he has good reason to know.he's going to do more it would have been a self inflicted wound to announce six weeks before the election that he intends to do something that he knows will be an election loser.

Am I saying that it's OK for him to mislead the American people?. I probably do think that, but that's not what I'm writing now. I'm saying  that until he knows he's going to do something unpopular that's not yet the "strategy". So why go out of his way to promise something that might cost that one senate seat in November that could doom Obamacare ?.