I get that when you’re faced with hostage-takers who are perfectly willing to kill their hostage and you really want to keep the hostage alive you have to give in to most of the hostage-takers’ demands. I really do.

But you don’t, for cryin’ out loud, then praise the deal as historic. Rather, you say things like “I don’t like this deal, but I was dealing with murderous bastards who’d just as soon kill the hostage as keep him alive, so I had little choice.”

Sadly, President Obama seems to admire compromise and comity more than he does any other principle.