As Obama frames the tale, Japan’s Dec. 7, 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor disappears from the picture. So does the Rape of Nanking, the alliance with Nazi Germany, the Bataan Death March; so do the battles of Saipan, Leyte, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the hideous toll that would surely have come of a land invasion, had the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki not led within days to Japan’s surrender. We are left to infer — Obama invites all mankind to believe — that none of these specifics are really relevant to Hiroshima.