On bringing back the girls (quietly)

Barack Obama commands the most powerful and most agile military the world has ever seen. If he was upset about the kidnapping and likely rape of nearly 300 schoolgirls in Nigeria, he could have sent in Delta Force to rescue them. But rather than deploy the military, he deployed his wife to look sad and hold -- a hashtag! How pathetic is that? (Think of Eleanor Roosevelt going #RememberPearlHarbor while Franklin fretted about the midterm elections.)

For an alternative scenario, see Peggy Noonan's "Bring Back the Girls--Quietly" online. Sure, a rescue could go pear-shaped, as happened to Jimmy Carter at Desert One. But that was the Vietnam military, not the splendid machine that replaced it in the 1980s and 1990s. Anyhow, better the possibility of a tragedy than the certainty of one.