John Podhoretz
Naturally, Liberal supporters of the President are trying to spin what has happened as a victory for Obama that shows his strength and resolve. Read some of their tweets below...pathetic. My bet is that Putin is going to keep raising the ante since he knows Obama doesn't have an ice cubes chance in hell to get Congressional approval, and with the country so dead set against this he will not dare move on his own. I'm almost ready to embrace Obamacare just to change the subject.
Feckless Obama embarrasses the nation
That would be back, back, back . . . to one week ago Saturday.
From scrolls unearthed by archaeologists and translated from cuneiform, we know that Barack Obama said on that day, Aug. 31, that he would take military action against the tyrannical Assad regime in Syria to punish its use of the chemical weapon sarin against its own people.
But although Obama acted as if this were a very important matter indeed, there remain a few curious facts scholars cannot account for.
For example, one hieroglyph of a television with an empty chair in front of it suggests to scholars that Obama First delivered this message to his fellow Americans at 1:15 in the afternoon on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, when only shut-ins and lunatics are inside.
Another hieroglyph, depicting a putter and an airplane, suggests to scholars that instead of beginning to work on securing congressional approval for his military action, Obama immediately high-tailed it to a golf course before bolting the country for a five-day trip abroad.
A third picture shows an angry mob outside the White House while a face seems to be peeking out from behind a curtain. Scholars speculate that this symbolizes a decision by Obama to greet increasing public resistance to action in Syria with an announcement that he would deliver an address to the nation . . . in, oh, a couple of days.
By that point, polls were showing three-fifths of the American people were opposed to military action, and their opposition was growing by the minute. This led his secretary of state to assure everyone that whatever the United States did would be “unbelievably small,” even as he compared Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad to Hitler.
Whip counts suggested the House of Representatives would vote the measure down, despite politically selfless endorsements from the two Republican leaders in the House. There were indications the president could not even get 50 votes in the US Senate, which is controlled by his own party.
That same day, which is to say Monday, the secretary of state — you remember him, screaming, “Evidence,” “Hitler,” “unbelievably small” — was asked a question at a press conference. What if Syria handed in its chemical weapons? Well, he said with some disbelief, if Syria did that, then that would be good, but . . .
Enter the Russians, the very regime Obama had stiffed last week on his jaunt abroad because it was opposing him on Syria. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, “Hey, what a great plan! We’ll get the weapons from Assad!”
To which every sane person said, Yeah, sure. In the middle of a civil war, you will a) secure the weapons and b) remove them from the country when c) you, Russia, don’t give a fig whether he has them or not.
But, after a few moments’ consideration of the possible escape hatch Obama had been provided here, his deputy national security adviser declared the Russian “proposal” was one that had to be taken “very seriously.”
And in a few hours’ time, Obama was telling interviewers that “absolutely” there would be no strike if Syria gave up its chemical weapons.
And so a roundelay that began with the president announcing his decision to launch a military strike at a time of his choosing to punish Assad for having used chemical weapons suddenly turned into the president and his desperate acolytes thinking they could take a victory lap!
“Thanks to Pres. Obama’s strength,” tweeted House Democratic honcho Nancy Pelosi, “we have a Russian proposal.” The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein tweeted, “Kind of amazed I’m saying this, but the White House may really be about to win on Syria.”
Ah, yes, winning. Which is to say, being humiliated, acting weak, behaving in vacillatory fashion, making a mockery of your office, destroying your country’s credibility, making your own words look desperately foolish, and ceding foreign policy to the Machiavellian machinations of a gangster regime in Moscow.
That’s what you call “winning” when what you mean by “winning” is “losing.”
Jimmy Carter can rest easy now. There’s another Democratic president worse at foreign policy than he ever was.
