WASHINGTON -- Having leaked to the world, and thus to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a detailed briefing of the coming U.S. air attack on Syria -- (1) the source (offshore warships and perhaps a bomber or two), (2) the weapon (cruise missiles), (3) the duration (two or three days), (4) the purpose (punishment, not "regime change") -- perhaps we should be publishing the exact time the bombs will fall, lest we disrupt dinner in Damascus.

He's the head of the family -- the one who promises the moon and you want to believe, God knows you love him. So when he turns up empty-handed again, you give him another chance. And another.

Can you imagine former Gov. Jeb Bush calling an education summit and then giving it a miss?

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama's foreign policy dream -- cordial relations with a Middle East tranquilized by "smart diplomacy" -- is in a death grapple with reality. His rhetorical writhings illustrate the perils of loquacity. He has a glutton's rather than a gourmet's appetite for his own rhetorical cuisine, and has talked America to the precipice of a fourth military intervention in the crescent that extends from Libya to Afghanistan.