JAMES TARANTO: Reductio ad Obama: The logic of the president’s incapacity to lead.

Obama loves to speak in the first-person singular; he seems oblivious to the obnoxiousness of his habitual references (including one in today’s press conference) to “my military.” But suddenly it’s a matter of whether we mean what we say.

It’s the same dodge as “I didn’t set a red line.” In reality, as we noted Wednesday, Obama did introduce the idea of “a red line,” and his subordinates later affirmed that he had thereby set such a line. Obama is using the first-person plural to obscure what he’s really doing by asking lawmakers for approval: demanding that they say that they mean what he said. He blundered into a policy by speaking carelessly, waited months before thinking through its implications, then made a decision. He believes he has the authority to carry out that decision on his own, but apparently is unwilling to do so unless Congress affords him political cover.

I’m beginning to think that this President Obama fellow just isn’t up to the job.

Related: Ta-Nehisi Coates: Dumb Into Damascus:

Polls can never be the end-all, be-all of any policy. But when you have majorities in your own country opposing a war, when the president can’t convince his own party, when alleged allies in the region and your strongest ally in the world oppose war, then it’s time to rethink. A coalition isn’t something you assemble just for show. It demonstrates a broad range of concerns and interests have come to the same conclusion. This cuts both ways. And so it’s worth considering why a broad range of concerns and interests are now united in opposition.

Put simply — is this any way to go to war? I don’t think Senator Obama would have been convinced.

Yes, that Senator Obama guy seemed fairly sensible. Too bad we can’t have him as President.