On the 28th of September, 2016, President Obama spoke with Jake Tapper of CNN for a presidential town hall (screen capture above). During the president’s time there, Tapper asked him “(with regard to Syria) you’ve said you were confident there were no good options for the U.S. to be able to stop what’s going on in Syria without getting our troops involved in a quagmire. . .” There was more to the question, but basically, Tapper was asking President Obama why the United States didn’t end up doing anything even after Syria used chemical weapons on their people before.

For about five minutes, the President of the United States expressed his clear, organized, and coherent thoughts and ideas in full sentences in front of an audience and cameras. When he finished his answer, there was no question that, at the time and over time, the administration had explored all options and considered all angles including costs, security, foreign relations, and how aspects of the situation in Syria affected or could affect the rest of the world.

While I understand that Obama is perhaps an exceptionally intelligent and thoughtful person, he is not far and away the only president of exceptional intelligence or understanding of the responsibility of the position. President Clinton, for all his mistakes, was no dummy either, and he was a gifted speaker even when he didn’t have notes to refer to. We’ve had some good ones. How sad is it that about now I’d just be thrilled if we had a president who could truthfully answer one question in a complete sentence, instead of going off on an unrelated tangent, making up statistics and “facts,” and just plain lying using a second grade vocabulary.

The bar has gotten way too low for the highest office in the nation.

Link: CNN’s September 2016 presidential town hall with then-President Obama. – moderated by Jake Tapper of CNN