Heh! My reaction to this incredible farce is the same as yours, Peter.

The American elephant (or is it a T-Rex?) continues flailing away madly at pesky bees, furiously battling the outer symptoms of the national illness but not addressing, treating, or even acknowledging the cause of it...which is America's imperial foreign policy of the last 60 years or so in the Middle East. Their flailings at the angry bees they have provoked by their nutbar foreign policy will inevitably provoke further aggravated symptoms of the illness, further isolated attacks by infuriated young Muslim men, and the illness will worsen.

Obama has jumped right into Bush's tarpit. It's easier to get into a tarpit than to get back out of it.