What's the difference between "boots on the ground" and military personnel wearing boots who are engaged in combat – and perhaps dying – on the ground? If you can answer that question convincingly, perhaps you'd like to apply for John Kirby's job, because he's not doing it very successfully. Kirby is the State Department spokesman who, in answer to a question from a reporter about the 250 US troops being sent to Syria, denied President Obama ever said there'd be "no boots on the ground" in Syria. Here's the video, and here's the relevant transcript:

"Kirby: there was never this – there was never this, "No boots on the ground." I don't know where this keeps coming from.

Question: But yes there – well, yes, yes, there was.

Kirby: There was no – there was – no there wasn't. There was –

Question: More than –

Question: What?

Kirby: We're not going to be involved in a large-scale combat mission on the ground. That is what the President has long said."

To anyone who has been following this, Kirby's argument is patently absurd. The President told the BBC less than twenty-four hours previously that there would be "no boots on the ground" – and then his administration announced that 250 more booted US soldiers would be treading Syrian ground.