Rachel Maddow, neocon.

Just as a reminder: I’m a neocon myself.

Of course I wrote  that with malice aforethought.  What’s the point of this gig if I can’t insert a needle here or there? That doesn’t detract from the slightly dark humor coming from this appearance of Maddow on MSNBC *:

Rachel Maddow made a rare daytime appearance on MSNBC Wednesday, sitting down with Ezra Klein, who was filling in for Alex Wagner, to talk about the possibility of a Congressional vote to authorize airstrikes against ISIS in Syria. Referring a report from The Hill quoting unnamed aides on the Left who don’t want Congress to vote on the issue, Maddow diagnosed a severe case of “Democratic wuss-itude.”

The Hill quoted anonymous sources, who said it would be politically “stupid” for Obama to put Democratic Congress members in the position of having to vote for military action in Syria or Iraq. Sen.Tim Kaine (D-VA), who been pushing for vote, said, “The notion of, ‘Well, we don’t want to cast a hard vote before a midterm because it might be unpopular,’ that’s the job we volunteered for.”

Maddow imitated Congress’ position on the matter, saying, “Please let us keep complaining from the peanut gallery and throwing stuff. Please don’t actually make us be the decision makers on this, which the Constitution says we ought to be.”

This is the really juicy stuff – I do so enjoy watching the Other Side’s cheerleaders get frustrated in public with their politicians, for a change – but later on Rachel Maddow went on to toe that interventionist line like a champ. Mind you, I agree that ISIS needs to be squashed like an absolute bug.  I just wish that I had a time machine.  It would be priceless to see the reaction on 2004-Rachel Maddow’s face when she saw video evidence that 2014-Maddow was now committing herself to a morals-based, easy-to-escalate campaign in Iraq and Syria.  Or, shoot, the look on June-2014 ‘Iraq is the new South Vietnam**!’ Maddow’s face.  Because I’m pretty sure that Maddow was kind of arguing back then that, hey, the Communist takeover worked out all right over there, hey? She certainly didn’t want to go back into Iraq then.

Seriously, this is why you pick your principles first, and then let your policy positions be informed by them.  Because when you don’t – when you pick what you want to do, and don’t bother working out why you would want to do it – then you end up like Rachel Maddow.  Because she’s not really a neoconservative, you see.  If Maddow was, she’d have a moral center to her universe that was simply better than Barack Obama wants to do this, and I trust him implicitly. And she wouldn’t be required to change her opinions every three months, because the problem here is that Barack Obama here has no moral center that’s better than I want to do this, and I trust myself implicitly.

Via Hot Air Headlines.

Moe ‘Neo-con’ Lane

PS: Watch the June video to the end.  Dear God, but the woman doesn’t even watch her own show!

*I had an unkind comment about the way that Klein and Maddow came across on that show, but I have the grim suspicion that the real problem there is that I’m getting old, and the kids really do need to get off of my lawn.

**Note that Rachel Maddow is proud of the fact that the Democratic-controlled Congress broke the sworn word of the United States of America when it came to protecting the South Vietnamese. Fine: she’s a progressive, and they don’t understand this stuff.  Still, I am grimly frightened that a lot of people signed their tickets to Hell that day.