The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said he believes President Obama has taken on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria belatedly because the president who ran for office on ending wars in the Middle East is worried about his legacy.
“The bottom line is, ISIS does not fit in the president’s narrative. His narrative is ‘I am the president to end these wars,’ and so now, when he looks at his legacy, he can’t get his head wrapped around the idea of what ISIS is and how to defeat it and what an imminent, urgent threat it really is,” Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday.
The airstrikes, coalition-building and fight-them-abroad-before-they-strike-at-home rhetoric echo that of George W. Bush — seemingly an awkward acknowledgement that the Bush policies that candidate Obama pilloried were not all bad.
While the anti-war president was grappling with that dissonance, “there’s been no urgency, and this threat has been out there for over a year, and finally the president started paying attention after the beheadings” and “now it’s catch-up time,” McCaul said.
