THERE ARE STILL intelligent, well-informed, and, most importantly, honest left intellectuals. Not many, but some. Possibly the best is Fred Hiatt, editorial-page editor of The Washington Post. His specialty is foreign affairs, on which he is a Democrat internationalist, a once-robust tribe, now small and scattered, now largely ignored by those in power. He is also a sober man. He chooses his words carefully. On most issues, he is sympathetic to the president and to Democrats. So when Fred Hiatt says that in Syria and Iraq, Mr. Obama has "presided over a humanitarian and cultural disaster of epochal proportions," he deserves special attention.
He said this in the first sentence of "Obama Syria Achievement," washingtonpost.com, September 6, 2015, set out (with Unca D's commentary) below. Worse than the epochal disaster, he says, is that the president has anesthetized the American people. We are no longer appalled by appalling things, and Mr. Obama is responsible for this.
