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News/Politics 9-9-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open thread, here’s 4 from me.

First, Syria.

From TheGuardian  “President Bashar al-Assad did not personally order last month’s chemical weapons attack near Damascus that has triggered calls for US military intervention, and blocked numerous requests from his military commanders to use chemical weapons against regime opponents in recent months, a German newspaper has reported , citing unidentified, high-level national security sources.

The intelligence findings were based on phone calls intercepted by a German surveillance ship operated by the BND, the German intelligence service, and deployed off the Syrian coast, Bild am Sonntag said. The intercepted communications suggested Assad, who is accused of war crimes by the west, including foreign secretary William Hague, was not himself involved in last month’s attack or in other instances when government forces have allegedly used chemical weapons.”

“But the intercepts tended to add weight to the claims of the Obama administration and Britain and France that elements of the Assad regime, and not renegade rebel groups, were responsible for the attack in the suburb of Ghouta, Bild said.”

President Obama plans to do what he does best today. Campaign. He has 6 network interviews planned for today, and a speech to the public tomorrow. At least he’s not giving free stuff away on the taxpayer dime to gain votes this time. That doesn’t work with Congress. They already have all the free/taxpayer-funded stuff they need.

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Next, Benghazi.

From NationalReview  “Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission in Libya who testified before Congress about the 9/11 attacks on an American diplomatic facility earlier this year, believes he has been “punished” for speaking out about the Obama administration’s response the night of the attack. He said he believes at least two of the Americans lost that night could have been saved if the United States had responded in time.”

“While Hicks still remains on staff at the State Department, he has not been reassigned to a post since being called back from Libya. In a statement to This Week, the State Department said Hicks was not removed from Libya as a result of the statements he has made about the Benghazi attacks and it is working on reassigning him.”

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Back to the US, and the anti-war left.

From TheHollywoodReporter  “Ed Asner Explains Hollywood Silence on Obama, Syria: They ‘Don’t Want to Feel Anti-Black'”

“In 2003, ahead of a U.S. attack on Iraq, a robust anti-war movement in Hollywood included a TV commercial starring Martin Sheen and Sean Penn visiting Baghdad. There were online petitions signed by Ed Asner; letters to President George W. Bush pleading for peace were signed by Matt Damon, Tim Robbins, Barbra Streisand and Alec Baldwin; former M*A*S*H star Mike Farrell fronted multiple press conferences where celebrities denounced war. In interviews, Janeane Garofalo stopped identifying herself as an actor — she preferred to be called a member of the U.S. anti-war movement.”

“The good news for President Barack Obama as he considers a military response against Syria for using chemical weapons against rebels is that he probably won’t have to deal with a similar anti-war movement from Hollywood. But that’s not because there isn’t opposition. It’s just not organized, and, as Asner and Farrell – two of the industry’s most vocal progressive activists — told The Hollywood Reporter Friday, perhaps it never will be.”

And then they go on to try to justify their hypocrisy. Even though it might be a war crime, there’s just not time to mobilize their opposition. 🙄

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And last, an interesting read. I can’t say I disagree with much of what she says.

From McClatchy  “Two-thirds of Americans cannot name a single Supreme Court justice, former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor told the crowd that packed into a Boise State ballroom to hear her Thursday.           

About one-third can name the three branches of government. Fewer than one-fifth of high school seniors can explain how citizen participation benefits democracy.”

““The more I read and the more I listen, the more apparent it is that our society suffers from an alarming degree of public ignorance,” O’Connor said.

That ignorance starts in the earliest years of a child’s schooling, she said, but often continues all the way through college and graduate school.”

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24 thoughts on “News/Politics 9-9-13”

  3. Good for you, Kim. I plan on doing the same today. Imho, I don’t think we have any business going to war with Syria (even on a limited basis).

    Love the Paul Harvey quote, Chas.

    Regarding the last story, it is appalling how little the majority of Americans know about politics/history/government. I’m not the best informed among us, but I know the basics, and I try to stay informed. However, I benefited from an above average education at good schools as well as having a father who was very well informed and talked to us about world views. I’ll always be grateful for that.

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  4. “Assad did not personaly authorize chemical weapons”. From the beginning, I wondered what he would have to gain from gassing his people. When Sadaam used chemical weapons against his own people, they were identified Kurds. These people, so far as I can tell, were not affiliated.

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  5. With some 70+% of the public against striking Syria, one has to wonder what the administration is thinking by now going the distance with all the interviews & a formal speech Tuesday night. Do they think they can turn the tide of public opinion on this?

    This will be interesting to watch. The president could rebound. But I think it more likely that this will be seen as the turning point in the 2nd term that will officially begin the ‘lame duck’ rule until 2016. Strange times, strange leadership.

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  6. The disadvantage of leading from behind is that you can’t see where you’re going.
    The advantage is that you can alwyas blame that on someone else.
    It has worked so far.

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  7. Hindsight will tell. Politically speaking, it was the mishandling of Katrina that became the turning point for Bush’s second term unravel. They never recovered from that.

    Presidents in their second terms are incredibly vulnerable and this could be Obama’s Katrina (with a lot more at stake, obviously). The mishandling of this is blatantly clear to everyone, friends and foes of the administration alike. The president can try to ‘blame’ Congress (which, in fact, has its own problems). Or Bush.

    But politically speaking, recovering from this — while maybe not impossible — won’t be easy.

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  8. Foreign policy will be Obama’s Waterloo. Benghazi, Libya, Syria, and the Middle East in general is in an uproar which he enabled and encouraged, and still continues too with the proposed strikes. And he seems determined to do it despite the wishes of Congress and citizens.

    I’m sure by now you’ve all seen the videos of the victims that the admin released in an effort to shock people to their way of thinking. The problem for me is, it doesn’t show who is responsible, just the results.

    As a former NBC NCO for my unit I can say that yes, the symptoms of the poor people in those videos is consistent with a chem/bio attack. There’s no question in my mind they were used. Credible sources have placed the blame on both sides, and both do possess them, so it could be either. Or a rogue govt official/general working solo. We can’t start dropping bombs indiscriminately and punish both sides, so it seems like a bad idea to start before we know who is actually responsible.

    And nothing the President says today or tomorrow will change that.

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  10. Obama’s foreign policy is not his Waterloo. Until recently even his opponents viewed it as his strength. Killing OBL and an orderly withdrawal from Iraq were highlights from his first term. Beyond this his use of drones and covert action, although criticized by the left, led to military success and greater security with little cost to Americans. And in Libya he managed to quickly bring NATO into an air war without any diplomatic cost. Considering the hesitancy of European allies to American military action, this was quite a success.

    If anything his recent errors in his approach with Syria might stem from overconfidence based on previous success. If he had quickly moved the air war from Libya to Syria, he might have ensured a smooth transition with hardly any pushback. However, America has soured on the Arab spring and its populist association with Islamic parties. And for the left, using chemical weapons as an excuse for any type of military action creates allusions to the Bush presidency. The left has been sour on Obama’s foreign policy for years but the parallels between Bush and Obama are just too obvious in this latest action. Thus, both the left and the right have pushed back on his proposal. And the duration of the Syrian war has allowed the media to accurately describe the combatants and their motives painting a picture where America’s best interests are probably to sit and watch (however, repugnant it may be to watch bystanders suffer). And its been fairly easy to dicepher the role of the Saudi’s and Emirates in this mess. Finally, the Obama administration overlooked British domestic politics and the coalition gov’t which constrains the Conservative gov’t which would support him.

    Michelle — Once Podhorertz threw out the “s” word, I almost stopped reading. A fairly convoluted opinion piece.

    Donna — good parrallel — Katrina II Syria. Obama looks as flatfooted as Bush in terms of response to a crisis. Perhaps the current Congress will rescue Obama since its far more incompetent than Obama and more incompetent than the Congress which opposed Bush.

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  11. Thanx for the link Michelle. That’s the one Rush talked about today. Podhertz has it right on.
    People are beginning to realize that. But it’s too late.
    An article in the current Washington Times says the IRS is still performingt selective auditing among conservatives.
    I see, my avitar isn’t available for this post. But my name is.

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  13. Obama has looked real green in this episode, but I would agree with HRW that he has not done horribly in foreign policy. In the last couple of weeks Obama has reminded everyone of Bush looking for WMDs and preparing to invade Iraq. Few Americans want a repeat of that
    performance.

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  14. Tucker Carlson, on FoxNews, said, “The illusion of competenc that has surrounded this administration is disippating.”
    Podhoretz says that he is competent, this is deliberate. I suspect Obama knows what he’s doing, but he has painted himself into a political corner this time.

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  15. What EVERYONE fails to realize is that Bush could NOT act on Katrina until the Governor of each state INVITED him in. It was a misunderstanding on the Governor of Louisiana’s part thinking that they Federal Government would just rush in to save them. There is protocol to follow. Bush followed the law and protocol and suffered the bad publicity, but never spoke out in his own defense.

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  18. Bush got to New Orleans as soon as possible in my opinion. There was no place to land him. Once during the crisis they had to land Air Force One in Pensacola. I am an hour from Pensacola and three hours from New Orleans. Once they helicoptered him over from a parking lot in Daphne, AL. There was total and complete devastion in Missississippi. Whole towns wiped off the map. You don’t hear too much about that. All you hear about is New Orleans. The city is below sea level and there was water every where. Keeping Bush OUT was in the better interest of the citizens because police and other emergency personnel would have been diverted from helping actual people WHO NEEDED HELP to handle the logistics and protection of an unneccessary person.

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  19. Kim, I have a buddy who helped with the Katrina rescue and cleanup. He said the residents of Mississippi generally worked hard to clean up their state and rebuild. Meanwhile, most of the residents of New Orleans sat around complaining and waiting for Little Bush to bring them Happy Meals.

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  23. Regarding Katrina, perception became reality. And the perception was that the feds dropped the ball and were slow to act.

    In my mind, the governor and that amazingly incompetent mayor should have taken most of the heat. But that wasn’t the overall perception and once that was solidified, there was no changing it.

    So it looks like Obama may have found a way out of his mess, all by accident of course (although now he seems to be spinning it that he was behind this plan all along — 🙄 )

    We’ll see if it nevertheless leaves a perception that he has seriously bungled this entire episode.

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