In CNN poll, 53 percent favor U.S. ground troops to fight ISIS

Something to remember about Obama's persistent refusal to commit U.S. ground troops, not only against ISIS, but in any Middle East military conflict: It's always been a political calculation, based on his belief (correct, I'd say) that he was elected in large part because Americans were sick of wars. No matter how bad it's getting over there, Obama has always seen it as a political winner to reject any sort of drawn-out battle on the ground because that takes us back to the Bush-Cheney years, and people grew weary of that in short order. Problem: The public will only back your refusal to fight until it becomes painfully clear that there's a real threat that needs to be dealt with, and that farming out the job to other countries with far less military prowess than the United States is not likely to get the job done. Obama bet that he could sit on his hands militarily and the situation wouldn't get bad enough to turn the public in favor of a ground war involving U.S. troops.

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According to a new CNN poll, he bet wrong:

For the first time in CNN/ORC polling, a majority of Americans (53%) say the U.S. should send ground troops to Iraq or Syria to fight ISIS. At the same time, 6-in-10 disapprove of the President's handling of terrorism and 68% say America's military response to the terrorist group thus far has not been aggressive enough. Overall, 60% say the U.S. military action against ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria is going badly, that's actually an improvement since October, when 67% said things were going poorly. But the improvement here comes entirely among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. Among that group, 57% now say things are going well against ISIS, up from 43% in October, while the share of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who say things are going well has held steady at 19%. Majorities across party lines feel the U.S. military response to ISIS hasn't been aggressive enough, including 52% of Democrats, 66% of independents and 90% of Republicans. Still, there are broad partisan gaps on sending ground troops to fight ISIS, on whether the U.S. ought to take a leading role in solving international problems and on whether to allow Syrian refugees to seek asylum in the U.S.

All you have to do is think back to the morning before the Paris attacks, when Obama smugly declared that ISIS was contained. That was a total lie and he probably knew it at the time, but he was pretty confident nothing would happen to alert the American people of the truth about just how strong ISIS had already become - thus eliminating any danger that he would look bad for persisting in his weak response.

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Suddenly, Paris, and then San Bernardino - and Obama found himself dragged kicking and screaming into talking about terrorism when he wanted to talk about climate change and gun control. There could have been no worse development for Obama, since events like this wake Americans out of their slumber and leave them wanting a decisive leader who will aggressively go after the terrorists. And everyone can see that's not the kind of leader we have. Nationally televised addressses to the nation in which you try to sound like that kind of leader and convince absolutely no one make your predicament even worse. Of course, talking about it like this makes it sound like it's all about Obama - which we all know is how he sees it. It's really all about the security of the American people, 52 percent of whom were stupid enough to elect a president who is smugly indifferent about that very thing. But even they are now waking up to the reality of the threats we face, and it's no longer so clear to them that we need to just stay out of all these icky fights because everyone got so sick of them before. So does this mean that Obama will suddenly transform himself into a war president? Of course not. Obama never learns anything and never admits he was wrong. He is completely committed to his leftist ideology, and if it's not working, it's only because Republicans are not letting him go as far with it as he wants to. Even his speech on Sunday night was all about defending his existing strategy and lecturing the rest of us about guns and the criticism of Muslims. But the political ground has shifted, and Obama can no longer run to the safe haven of Americans' opposition to the use of ground troops. That no longer exists. ISIS has shown itself to be a real threat in spite of Obama's determination to make us think otherwise, and you can expect some real tension in his final year in office between what the public understands is necessary and the president's steadfast refusal to do it. It might have been nice if Americans had taken national security more seriously in November 2008 and November 2012, but you go to the polls with the electorate you have, I guess.

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