Organizing for Action acting to avoid organizing over #Syria.

This should not surprise.

The awkward position in which progressive allies of President Barack Obama find themselves can be seen clearly in the actions of his former political arm, now called Organizing for Action, which despite the need for activists to lobby Congress to support the president’s call for military strikes, is essentially voting “present.”

Capitol Hill is all but singularly focused on Obama’s push for congressional authorization to use force in Syria, and the president has canceled a trip to California next week to devote his time and energy to lobbying lawmakers.

But in his weekly call with grassroots supporters, held this week on Tuesday, the executive director of OFA, Jon Carson, said of Syria, “OFA isn’t planning to actively organize on this with so much going on on other issues.”

Continue reading Organizing for Action acting to avoid organizing over #Syria.

Howard Dean: Warmongering for #Syria attack!

I’ve been doing this blogging thing since about… 2002 or 2003, depending on how you score things; so in a weird sort of way 2004 was my first Presidential election.  It was certainly the first one where I was actually paying real attention about what was going on, particularly when it came to stuff that happened before Labor Day 2004 (which is when most people start paying attention to Presidential elections). And, of course, if you followed the ’04 race you were following Howard Dean.  The passion!  The amazing fundraising! The fierce devotion to the antiwar cause! Particularly that last one; Howard Dean was the Great Hope of the netroots.  He was the antiwar guy who had a shot at the nomination.  Dean was the guy who spoke “truth to power” about the War in Iraq.

Well, as one of the bards of my childhood put it: Prepare the viands, prepare the foods, prepare the strange wines, for tonight indeed is a great night! …And it is.  I’ve been waiting a decade for this preordained event. Continue reading Howard Dean: Warmongering for #Syria attack!

Retire, @SenJohnMcCain.

If John McCain doesn’t like long Senate meetings trying to give McCain’s fellow-Senators the information that they’ll need to decide whether we’re going to bomb somebody, well, that’s easily fixed.

McCain playing poker on his iPhone
As the hearing continues, our ace photographer Melina Mara reports she spotted Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) “passing the time by playing poker on his iPhone during the hearing.”

They indeed have video proof at the link – as well as McCain’s tone-deaf ‘apology.’ God save me from Senators with entitlement issues*.

Moe Lane

PS: I am being nice.  Honest, and for true.  If I wasn’t a partisan hack…

*Actually, I know a couple who don’t.

Quote of the Day, Nancy Pelosi, Sith Neocon edition. #syria #p2

Allahpundit likes using a dull knife for his flensing, it seems:

Here’s Nancy recalling a chat she had with her five-year-old grandson, whom we’ll call “Pelosi 2002.” Pelosi 2002 couldn’t understand how intervening in a chaotic sectarian bloodletting with fanatics on all sides is in America’s national interest. Simple, said Pelosi 2013: The head fanatic is killing children with gas. “Didn’t Saddam do that to Kurdish children?” asked Pelosi 2002, his big brown eyes wide with confusion. No no, kidding — I like to imagine that he thought that, but kept quiet out of respect for his elders.

I have to admit, it’s entertaining to watch the Democrats on this.  The Left is stuck in a position where supporting the President means opposing the general will of the people, and they don’t have the inherent natsec credibility enjoyed by Republicans that would allow them to get away with supporting the President anyway.  You can guess just how sympathetic I am to their plight, too…

Moe Lane

Advice to Members of Congress regarding #syria.

Apparently, somewhere about half* of Republicans in Congress follow @redstate on Twitter, so there’s a decent chance that they’ll see this advice.  Anyway, I’ve been banging a drum on this issue all weekend, but I’ll bang it again: vote your conscience. Don’t feel pressured to vote against intervention, for intervention, for a different kind of intervention than the one you favor, or any other combination or scenario. There’s a reason why Speaker John Boehner signalled that he hopes other caucus members will vote to authorize, or why House Majority Leader Eric Cantor only intends to vote for intervention: they’re not going to whip the vote, and there’s not going to be a push to rush the process.

So don’t rush into this, and vote for what you think is the best, or more likely the least bad, option.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: As I noted here, I don’t actually know what the best option is.  Every one of them ends poorly.

*The exact number is 51.5% of all Republicans with ‘official’ Twitter accounts.  Apparently 97% of all Congressmen have Twitter accounts, so it’s safe enough to say that about half of the GOP members of Congress are at least monitoring RedState.

John Kerry doing the Full Ginsburg about #syria today.

How very last-minute of the man.  And of Barack Obama, too.

Two days after he made the Obama administration’s definitive case for attacking Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry will make the case for asking for congressional permission on the Sunday talk shows, a State Department aide said Saturday.

The White House has dispatched Kerry to all five Sunday morning news programs to urge a yes vote in Congress on the use-of-force authorization President Barack Obama seeks against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.

Note that Kerry skipped the Spanish-language stations this go-round; this is all about shoring up support for Barack Obama’s policies among the President’s white, liberal base. The private polling numbers that the President’s undoubtedly gotten by now for this issue must be horrible. Continue reading John Kerry doing the Full Ginsburg about #syria today.

Is @barackobama just planning to bomb #Syria anyway?

You know who should be most infuriated by this?

A senior State Department official tells Fox News the president’s decision to take military action in Syria still stands, and will indeed be carried out, regardless of whether Congress votes next week to approve the use of such force.

The official said that every major player on the National Security Council – including the commander-in-chief – was in accord last night on the need for military action, and that the president’s decision to seek a congressional debate and vote was a surprise to most if not all of them. However, the aide insisted the request for Congress to vote did not supplant the president’s earlier decision to use force in Syria, only delayed its implementation.

True antiwar progressives. And no, I’m not trying to be cute. This is a smack in the face to those people – and while I don’t normally care, I can’t say that I’m fond of the implication that Barack Obama can just ignore us, too.

Via AoSHQ.

Time to put up the Yes, Minister’s Four-Stage Strategy clip again.

These clips are not always innocently funny, unfortunately.

Back in 2011, Mark Hemingway put up a transcript of that bit*:

Bernard Woolley: What if the Prime Minister insists we help them?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Then we follow the four-stage strategy.
Bernard Woolley: What’s that?
Sir Richard Wharton: Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.
Sir Richard Wharton: In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
Sir Richard Wharton: In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there’s nothing we *can* do.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it’s too late now.

Continue reading Time to put up the Yes, Minister’s Four-Stage Strategy clip again.

Brits refuse to join @barackobama’s Syrian Adventure.

…Wait.  What?

The Obama administration’s plans to strike at Syria lost its most important foreign ally tonight when the British government said it would not take part in any military action against Syria for its suspected use of chemical weapons.

The announcement by British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond came after Prime Minister David Cameron was defeated in the House of Commons when he put it to a vote.

Cameron said it was clear that Parliament did not want to see British military action.

“I get that and the government will act accordingly,” the prime minister said.

Via Hot Air, which also notes that this could very well mean the fall of the Cameron government (it certainly weakened it).  The Daily Mail: Continue reading Brits refuse to join @barackobama’s Syrian Adventure.

…Jeebus, I need a drink: State is *guessing* that the chemical attack was by Syrian regime.

You have got to be KIDDING me.

Continue reading …Jeebus, I need a drink: State is *guessing* that the chemical attack was by Syrian regime.