Donald Trump Proves He's "Presidential" by Ordering an Ineffectual Air Raid Without Pissing His Pants.

I was mortified to watch the media -- especially cable -- get man-crushes on the Donald, simply because he joined the Big Boy Club of people who throw missiles around. Maybe some people actually died. That would be even better!

Now you've bombed somebody, Donald. Feel better?

In all seriousness, I'm being derisive because this knee-jerk reaction -- bombing for peace -- is getting old. But explain this: When's the last time this worked out? Okay, Clinton handled Bosnia and Kosovo pretty well. At least that war is well behind us, with few ghosts.

The rest of them, from Korea, Vietnam, Iraq (I and II, and, weirdly, now a sort of III with Mosul), our support for Israeli wars, the Arab Spring conflicts, and, Christ, Afghanistan and now Syria, well, it's a list of messes left unfixed. Can we stop the bombing already?

(Apropos of nothing, I suppose, but Jimmy Carter is the only president since Herbert Hoover to not bomb or shoot at anyone. He's looking pretty good about now.)

Atrios calls them Freedom Bombs, and, as he's right to remind us, how's that working out? We've got the biggest, nastiest armed forces in the freaking world, fine, but what did we get from crashing that air field? This?

(CNN) New airstrikes targeted a town in Syria that was hit by a chemical attack earlier this week, activists said, less than a day after the US bombarded a Syrian airbase to "send a message" to the Assad regime.

And the strikes were flown from the very base Trump ordered bombed. Thank God we did that without having any effect. Still, it was presidential. Everybody said so. Fareed Zakaria, Lindsay Graham, Brian Williams, David Ignatius. Haven't checked yet, but I'm sure Tom Friedman chimed in.

I wonder how stern, measured, and wise John McCain will be on the Sunday shows. Maybe he can explain how we're "winning." Because someone needs to help me out here.


Update. Dan Rather weighs in. (All the media apparently aren't crazy.)