HOW CLOCK BOY AND HIS DAD PUNKED OBAMA: At the Weekly Standard, Lee Smith writes:

American folklore as well as our classic literature—from Herman Melville through Hammett and down to David Mamet—makes plain a simple fact: No one is ever conned against their will. Rather, the victim’s vanity is the central ingredient in the confidence scheme. And that’s why it was so easy to play the president. Did he really have to tweet an invitation to Ahmed to come to the White House before he knew the whole story? As Ricky Roma says in Glengarry Glen Ross, “you never open your mouth till you know what the shot is.” And why after Ahmed and his family met with Bashir didn’t Obama rescind the invitation? What’s this kid doing meeting with a mass murderer? Tell Ahmed he’s not at this time welcome to visit the White House.

Obama didn’t walk away because he never does, not from Ahmed and his father and not from the Iranians over the nuclear deal. He says he’s got as much to worry about as anyone with the nuclear deal since his name is on it. And that’s precisely the issue—he doesn’t understand the cards and the chips he holds, and the chair he sits in, are not his. Rather, he is risking the interests and the prestige of the country he was elected to lead for the sake of his own vanity. Yes the president is very vain, which is what makes him such an easy mark, every time.

Read the whole thing.

Update: InstaReader Don Kilmer tweets, “Great read! It struck me that the American people’s vanity is also what allowed Obama to punk us.” Indeed.™