Best Clinton Moment…

… in tonight's speech: The commander in chief's claim that his commanders [had assured]* him they can keep order with fewer than 115,000 troops, but that he's going to out-Santa Santa by keeping the level at 138,000. I'll bet there's even some level of micromillinanoparsification at which that claim is literally true! Transcript here.

* The original post, written before the transcript was available, set this verb in the present progressive have assured (indicating that an action happened at an unspecified time before now) rather than in the pluperfect had assured (indicating that an action occurred before another action in the past) as the transcript indicates. It is corrected now as per the transcript—making the buckstopping CIC's blameshifting Little Rock wriggle even more obvious.