What we learned from yesterday’s news conference (which isn’t what the president wanted us to learn):

Add up these comments and it seems the president’s second-term foreign policy will not change at all. Never admit error, obfuscate, change the subject, talk and talk and talk, “engage,” and claim all is well. Mr. Obama noted that in Syria the situation has “deteriorated” since he demanded that Assad go — in the summer of 2011. That’s the truest thing he said: There are now 40,000 dead, 400,000 refugees, many more displaced persons, and a really dangerous jihadi presence. As Mr. Obama might say, that’s not optimal — and he remains unable to draw the connection between his own policies and those disastrous developments.

And the great thing is, we now get over four more years of it.