The truth is that it happens to all of us. We see something on television which angers us so much we want to throw a brick at the screen.
But when it comes to that irascible and impulsive TV news addict Donald Trump, he can do more than that. As Commander-in-Chief he can, in no time at all, order that 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles be launched at the people responsible for such an upsetting scene on his television.
This is not to say that President Trump was necessarily wrong to send a spectacular message of rebuke to Bashar al-Assad, after the Syrian regime had (not for the first time) employed nerve gas against its own civilians. But that was all it was: a made-for-TV message. Of the various forms of possible military action drawn up by the Pentagon at the President’s request, this was the most minimal.
Still, there is something disconcerting about the speed with which presidential anger is translated into bombing — especially when it runs exactly opposite to the policy which his administration had set out just five days earlier (when Trump’s ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, had declared: ‘Our priority is no longer to focus on getting Assad out’).
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