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.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: One of the things that I miss about the GWB administration – one of the many, many things that I miss about the GWB administration – is that they rarely, if ever, panicked about stuff like this. George W Bush had what is apparently the rare ability* to decide on a policy, decide what was needed to accomplish that policy, then work out the path that got that policy accomplished without relying on Bush having to try butting his head through a brick wall. His plans didn’t always work (Social Security reform comes to mind), but at least you knew that George W Bush had one. Do we know what Barack Obama wants to do about Syria? Does he?
*Well, certainly Barack Obama lacks that ability. If there’s an unifying theme to this administration that’s more complex than this, I have yet to hear of it.
Preference cascade?*
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Two serious points.
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This highly flexible mendacity ought to end Tereza’s hopes on 1600, which is a Good Thing on principle.
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If they were contestants on “Dancing with the Stars”, Obama and Kerry would have just done the equivalent of falling on their {posterior}s… As with the show, the American public get to vote .. I hope they’re paying attention.
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Mew
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* Ace of Spades spent much of 2008-2012 waiting for a preference cascade that never came .. worth a google (site:ace.mu.nu “preference cascade”) to read anyway…
Yeah, I remember all those posts. And while I think Ace was probably indulging in some wishful thinking, he did also have a point — namely, “this guy is a serious knob, he has provided ample proof of his knobbiness, and once the low-info voters catch on, he’ll be a jobless knob.”
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Preference cascades are a real thing, though. We saw one in the last administration, when the voters just finally got sick and tired of Bush. And if I remember right, that cascade preference kicked in sometime during the early-to-mid sixth year of his administration. Which means that, as Obama has been a far worse president than Bush, and as history has a tendency to repeat itself, I expect to be enjoying myself immensely in six to ten months.
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“History has a tendency to repeat itself.” In this context, what a nice, classy, elegant, Western way of saying “Karma’s a b****, Mr. President.”
2014 is going to be .. interesting.
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The two things that seriously concern me are how far the economy will soften in a year, and what external enemies may do… We haven’t, IMO, avoided a “French Revolution” scenario yet.
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Mew