REALLY…you first OLD MAN.
“We like the path we’re on now. We can denounce it if it goes bad, and praise it if it goes well and ask what took him so long.” Jack Kingston, R of GA, NYT, September 9, explaining why his party won’t debate and vote on authorization.
I would add, “Regardless, we can snipe from the sidelines as it goes along,” and “EVERYthing is political fodder for us, including war, and we accept responsibility for NOthing, absolutely NOthing!”
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This, if true, is huge news. Is he going to deploy this somewhere besides ABC?
The devil is, of course, in the drafting. Will he call on the President for the “language”?
I remember under Clinton when we bombed Serbia over Kosovo with no ground troops. In fact bombing alone can work and has worked in the past. To claim that we have to send in our own ground troops is nothing more than fear mongering trying to scare up votes. Claiming that Obama’s polices are a failure even before they are put into place is nothing more than the failure of the politician making the claim to have any real valid policy positions of their own.
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Once again the Republicans overplay a thin hand. Feeling that America was once again ready for some butch posturing and bomb flinging in the middle east, and that voters might reward Republicans for coming more naturally to both, they now hint at the probability that we will have to send ground troops back into Iraq, apparently because the untold billions we spent training and arming the corrupt and cowardly Iraqi military was all for nought. That’s not going to be too popular a position, even in red state America.
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"Barack Obama, according to most Washington Republicans, is a
political kleptomaniac, swiping constitutional powers reserved for
Congress and ruling like a hereditary monarch. They’re preparing to sue
him in federal court for something akin to grand theft autocrat.
On the other hand, many of these same Republicans simultaneously
denounce Obama as a pusillanimous, pussy-footing, procrastinator who
can’t man-up and do something when the country’s got problems.
Well, which is it?
On balance, the argument goes to those who charge the president with
Constitutional overreach, especially after his tough United Nation’s
speech justifying his decision to bomb ISIS facilities in Syria as well
as Iraq – all without Congressional approval.
It’s overreach we should be able to live with, however, especially if
all those scare stories about how ISIS and the Khorasan group are
coming to get us are believable. Instead, it has set off a debate in
which each side is belaboring the other with, of all things, the
Constitution.
The stir over Obama’s taking us into a fight without a Congressional
declaration of war prompts a layman in legal matters to ask, “What’s so
new and different about that?”
We haven’t declared war against any nation since December, 1941. In
the interval, however, we’ve been fighting almost continuously all over
the globe – in Korea (just a police action, we were told), Vietnam,
Afghanistan and Iraq and, in a more limited way, in Kosovo, Lebanon,
Panama and Grenada. That’s eight different “wars,” in case you’re
counting.
The only thing Congress has had the gumption to declare war on in all
that time is poverty, another never-ending struggle like war in the
Middle East.
Obama’s critics in this matter contend he should use his authority to
summon our nonperforming Congress back from its latest recess to cast a
verdict on the air war – and whatever other military response might be
needed – in Syria and Iraq. And they are right.
But rounding up Congress today is harder than locating a plumber who’s willing to come to your rescue in less than a week.But rounding up Congress today is harder than locating a plumber who’s willing to come to your rescue in less than a week.
The members of Congress justify their retreat from the Capitol on
grounds they’re obliged by the electoral calendar to hurry home and make
sure voters know what a splendid job they’ve done in Washington.
Otherwise, they’d be happy to stick around for a vote.
Actually, a vote on the Middle East is the last thing our heroes in
Washington want. A few actually demand Obama call them back for a vote,
but many, maybe most, have their fingers crossed in hope he does no such
thing.
It’s too risky a vote. The country’s weary of war and divided on what
we should do. A wrong vote either way could cost a guy his cushy
Congressional sinecure, something no sensible, self-protecting member
would risk. The truth is, in leaving Washington our overpaid,
underworked Congress displayed an unseemly fleetness of foot matched
only by the haste with which the Iraq army headed for the high grass as
ISIS approached.
The sorry truth is that it no longer matters whether Congress votes
or doesn’t vote on a military response to ISIS. Obama, the reluctant
warrior, already has made the decision on his own. He has put us “all
in,” or almost all in; no ground troops, for now at least.
There’s an ironic reversal of roles here. In their determination to
give Obama no help, to give him no overt, on-the-record support even on a
matter as important as war, to isolate and make him appear irrelevant,
Republicans in Congress have reduced themselves to irrelevancy on an
issue they prize most – national security and the use of military
force.
Obama took the lead not because he wanted to but because he had to.
He’s a reluctant warrior, as Republicans correctly claim, but now he’s
the one clearly in charge as the Middle East heats up, the threat of
terrorism rises, and the mid-term elections bear down on us.
Congress mustn’t be allowed to escape some responsibility, however. A
Congressional debate exploring how much the terrorist treat is real and
how much is media hysteria would be wise. Alas, wisdom and Washington
are not terms we’d naturally include in the same sentence.
Political advantage these days comes not from great strategy. It
comes more often from not doing “stupid stuff,” the stuff Republicans
have done in ceding foreign policy leadership and the initiative in the
run-up to a critical election to a battered Obama.
John Farmer appears Sundays in The Star-Ledger."
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Of course you have to get a few things wrong for the war merchants to make money.
Anyone in your immediate family goes in first Bonehead.
jw1
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Jesus. The GOP is absolutely bound and determined to get us into another ground war, aren’t they?
And Democrats should be hitting the airwaves with ads touting that Boehner said this. Let the Voters know that the GOP wants to send our already damaged troops back into a ground war despite the bulk of the American public not wanting that.
Once again, Republican’s find themselves left behind the curve–
Time to play catch up –
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Why anyone would ask Boehner anything is a mystery, unless they are talking about fake tans, cocktails or cigarettes.
They will have to go in with shoot to kill orders. We can’t be takin’ folks prisoner now that Gitmo is closed!
Well I suppose we are suppose to believe that the worst Speaker of the House in generations is now a military expert. Yeah right pal! Try getting your crowd to put in a few days at the office before jumping into areas you should avoid.
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Would you raise taxes to pay for this adventure? If not, you are not serious.
“He added that he would bring Congress back from recess to vote on a resolution authorizing military action in Iraq and Syria.”
Sure. Any day now. Any day…
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" “If the goal is to destroy ISIS, as the president says it is, I don’t
believe the strategy that he outlined will accomplish that,” the Speaker said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“At the end of the day, I think it’s gonna take more than air strikes to drive them outta there. At some point somebody’s boots have to be on the ground.” "
Brilliant deduction Bonehead
What???one??? HE’S gonna ask the House to work???
Oh, the HORROR!!!
Ummmm, Johnny … I don’t think so. 113 days in session this year is too much to ask of this clown car. They are taking the last half of September, all of October and a week and a half of November doing what they’re paid to do. … Get reelected. This is the ONLY part of the entire 2 year term that really matters to these idiots. ISIS would need to be camping on the steps of the Capitol for them to stop their vacat…err…reelection campaigns.
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McBain, the 2 wars Bush got going were not listed in the budget while he was in office so no “offset”, besides he was a repub so ANYTHING he wanted was …ahem …thought of as heroic. If Obama did something (anything) that was exactly as Bush would have done then Obama is thought of as a despotic tyrant while Shrub would be thought of as a hero and stupifyingly courageous.
Laugh of the day,IMHO.