‘Not optimal” is the new “Man, that really sucks.”
Don’t take our word for it — just listen to President Obama.
Speaking of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Benghazi consulate, in which Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were murdered, Barack Obama said:
“If four Americans get killed, it’s not optimal.”
And he said it on Comedy Central, no less.
“What happens during the course of a presidency,” Obama explained to Jon Stewart, “is that the government is a big operation and [at] any given time, something screws up.”
Or, as he put it a couple of weeks ago, sometimes a president encounters a “bump in the road.”
Of course, not everyone sees it that way.
Like Sen. John McCain: “Even from someone like the president, who has never known what these kinds of tragedies are about and the service and sacrifice that people make, it’s still just — I can’t even get angry,” he said. “It’s just so inappropriate.
“The president on that comedy show, he didn’t talk about responsibility, because the responsibility is his. We want to know what the president knew, when he knew it, and what did he do about it?”
But, hey — why knock such a conveniently short phrase? This is the Twitter age, after all.
Consider:
Ahmed Abu Khattala, one of the ringleaders of the Benghazi attack, sits in a luxury hotel sipping mango juice and giving mocking interviews to The New York Times.
Not optimal.
The State Department rejected pleas to beef up security — even as Stevens warned in secret cables of growing “targeted and discriminate attacks” and that “the al Qaeda flag has been spotted several times flying over government buildings and training facilities.”
Not optimal.
And it’s not just Benghazi.
Trillions in deficit spending?
Not optimal.
Economy mired in recession?
Not optimal.
Re-elect the president?
Most definitely, not optimal.