Obama official: Something about Assad, a fork, and Cheerios

Obama official: Something about Assad, a fork, and Cheerios

CheeriosStop us if you’ve heard this one before, but a senior White House official said of the planned U.S. strike on Syria:

If Assad is eating Cheerios, we’re going to take away his spoon and give him a fork. Will that degrade his ability to eat Cheerios? Yes. Will it deter him? Maybe. But he’ll still be able to eat Cheerios.

We are still awaiting Cliff Notes on the comment, but in the meantime we at LU are trying to make sense of this. Here are some possible readings:

We are going to impose sanctions on deliveries of breakfast cereal to the Presidential Palace in Damascus.

The U.S. plans to force Bashar al-Assad, who is lactose intolerant (hence his habit of eating Cheerios with a fork), to ingest milk.

When we are finished with Syria, all Assad will be able to eat is Cheerios with a fork.

OK, it’s like this. Cheerios represent the Syrian army. The fork represents U.S. cruise missiles. The cereal bowl is the Middle East. No, no, on second thought, the Cheerios stand for Assad’s tyranny over the people of Syria. The spoon is international opinion, and …

Best explanation of all was provided by the two-word response from Weasel Zippers: “Wait, what?”

The name of the official who offered up this … er — analogy(?) was not revealed by USA Today in its summary of the latest administration declarations of precisely how limited the U.S. “attack” will be.

Also not included was Secretary of State John Kerry’s promise that the strike will be “unbelievably small.” Small enough perhaps to fit through the tines of a fork? Only if it is laden with Cheerios.

LU Staff

LU Staff

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