But if America didn't successfully eliminate violent extremists in Afghanistan or Iraq even with tens of thousands of boots on the ground, if extremists in those countries began to gain more power as soon as Americans left, if we didn't manage to successfully train their armies even during a years-long deployment of our best forces, why do we think that a foe Chuck Hagel characterizes as the most formidable we've seen in the War on Terror can be beat with airstrikes and a few hundred advisers? Or are they not as formidable as Team Obama has led us to believe? The White House may have an internally consistent logic that they're not sharing. Evaluating it is difficult so long as they talk to us like we're stupid.

The arguments in Obama's speech brought me no closer to supporting intervention against ISIS not because I am confident that I know the correct policy, but because the rhetoric he used was bullshit—that is to say, words put forth in an effort to persuade without any regard for whether they're true or false, rigorous or not. "Abroad," he said at one point, "American leadership is the one constant in an uncertain world." The one constant? Beyond the lazy, inaccurate jingoism, that claim comes from a man who said of his predecessor, "This president may occupy the White House, but for the last six years the position of leader of the free the world has remained open. And it's time to fill that role once more."

He doesn't even believe it—or was it the critique of Bush he didn't believe?

A politician cannot make both claims and expect to be heard as if his words are credible.

The same disregard for past statements haunts the section of the speech about the war power. "I have the authority to address the threat from ISIL," he told the nation, with no further explanation offered, despite the fact that he went on record as a presidential candidate with a war powers standard that would plainly forbid acting as he now plans to without Congressional approval. Having totally reversed himself, he adds insult to injury by speaking as if his new position is obvious, uncontroversial, and correct beyond dispute. Meanwhile, multiple authors at Lawfare are openly scoffing at the new legal theory that he has suddenly adopted.

Whether a willingness to bullshit the American people, even on a matter as grave as war, is already within anyone who puts themselves forward for the presidency, or a type of mendacity they all come to see as justified only after entering office, I cannot say. But I reject the widespread presumption that this is an inevitable and necessary part of presidential leadership to which we must resign ourselves, so much so that we're expected to respect these men even as they willfully mislead us.

And there is, alas, an even bigger problem—the many vital details Obama sees no need to address at all.