Will we now get the truth about military adventures?
Those who were hoping to use the Somali Pirates issue as a metaphor for an already failing presidency have had a tough time explaining the apparent measured and successful approach taken by the Obama team to what their enemies were hoping was a Khrushchev moment.
The real point is this, though. Under President Bush, tales of military daring sometimes turned out to be exaggerated, and in some cases unforgivably false.
Under President Obama, are we to learn the unvarnished truth even when politics tempts the administration to dress things up? They made a good start with the pirates by refusing to engage in breast-beating before or after. If the generally acknowledged truth of the encounter (that the pirates had to be killed) turns out to be unchallenged, then this event is not just a decent little piece of steel for the Obama spine; it is also a very important readjustment from the days of serial overstatement.
This is not to say that killing them was right or wrong (morally or practically) but just that a war story, calmly told, unadorned and un-politicised, will burnish Mr Obama's image more than a thousand gung-ho tales that turn out to be tall. This is the lesson of the Bush years.
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