Obama: 'We don't have a strategy yet' for defeating ISIS

Why would you get all hot and bothered to develop a strategy for defeating the JV team? Come on, y'all. It's annoying to the president when "folks are getting a little further ahead of what we're at than we currently are"

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Don't rush him. He'll get around to it. Much of the media are typically reporting this as a "gaffe," as if it only matters insofar as it represents a political stumble for Obama. I'm guessing some of the people looking at getting their heads lopped off by ISIS might disagree. At any rate, make sense if you can of Josh Earnest's attempt at damage control. Hey, they have a comprehensive strategy, just no military options in Syria, which is not at all what Obama said:

“I don’t want to put the cart before the horse: we don’t have a strategy yet,” Obama said of the effort to combat the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) in its safe haven in Syria. “I think what I’ve seen in some of the news reports suggest that folks are getting a little further ahead of what we’re at than what we currently are.” Obama’s comment that “we don’t have a strategy,” delivered to reporters at the White House before the Labor Day holiday weekend, prompted immediate mockery from Republicans — not to mention quick damage control from the White House. “In his remarks today, [Obama] was explicit — as he has been in the past — about the comprehensive strategy we’ll use to confront [ISIS] threat,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in a series of Twitter posts. “He was referring to military options for striking [ISIS] in Syria,” Earnest added in a hastily scheduled CNN appearance.

The obvious question, of course, is even if you had legitimate reasons for not having settled on a military strategy yet, why would you publicly announce that to the enemy? You want them to think you're ready to roll at a moment's notice if they don't retreat. Obama seems more concerned about getting his critics to retreat by letting it be known he thinks it's unreasonable of them to expect a strategy from him. That's why he's talking about "folks" who are annoying him by "getting a little further ahead of where we're at than we currently are" - whatever that means - rather than making clear pronounciations to ISIS that their time is up. You always know with Obama which adversary he really wants to fight.