After Paris when President Obama stood up and declared America had to summon up the courage to not ‘succumb to fear’ he sounded like Winston Churchill after Dunkirk – his words evoked echoes of long sanctified courage from General Washington on his knees in the snow at Valley Forge to the Alamo to the surrounded paratroopers at Bastonge fighting on against fearful odds.

But, then, it turned out President Obama (or O’bummer as one wit later tagged him) wasn’t urging us fight on at all – instead (after the terrorists blew up five restaurants, a concert and a stadium) he was exhorting us to find the courage not to fight – or to fight as little as possible.

It was a clever, even devilish, turn of phrase.