George Will Has Obama’s Back on Egypt

George Will is often out of step with other conservatives. Sometimes I’m glad of this, and sometimes I’m not. He speaks wisdom in his latest column, taking on the Righties who use every news peg to try to bash President Obama.  (Some elements of the Left, of course, are equally guilty of this tendency.)  Here’s Will today:

Those Americans who know which Republican will win next year’s Iowa caucuses can complain about those who did not know that when a Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire, he would set a region afire. From all other Americans, forbearance would be seemly.

It also would be amazing, because there is a cottage industry of Barack Obama critics who, not content with monitoring his myriad mistakes in domestic policies, insist that there must be a seamless connection of those with his foreign policy. Strangely, these critics, who correctly doubt the propriety and capacity of the U.S. government controlling our complex society, simultaneously fault the government for not having vast competence to shape the destinies of other societies.

There are plenty of good and valid reasons to be critical of the Obama administration. But blaming Obama for Egypt is no more valid than the contention that somehow President Bush should have prevented 9/11.