Category: Syria

Ace Keeps Killin’ It Every Day

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Honestly, every other blog is at risk of becoming redundant:

US Companies: You Must Pass Comprehensive
Immigration Reform So We Have the Workers to Fill
the Jobs Whose Former Holders We Laid Off

Once Ace does a headline like that, the story itself is almost an afterthought, and what more can I add, really? People are like, “Stacy, what’s up with the tangents, huh? I mean, WTF, Alex Pareene?”

Today is 9/11 and the first anniversary of the Benghazi attack, and I know I should be blogging about that stuff, but it’s demoralizing even to try, because Ace is always so much better at it:

If it’s true — as it certainly seems to be — that the US had a fairly important arms supply line running from Benghazi and Triopli to Syria (via Qatar, Jordan, and Turkey), it at least suggests the White House should have had more security in the area to protect its people.
The main thing I think this article advances is the Phony Scandal Cover-Up motive. That is, why are the media so determined to label Benghazi a “Phony Scandal”? Apart from their reflexive need to praise their Hero God, I mean.
I have long thought that, behind the scenes, the Administration was telling reporters, sotto voce, “Well, you know we had a major CIA operation going on in Benghazi. And those darned Partisan Republicans just want to expose it, Because They Hate America.”
And then reporters, feeling all Trusted and Respected by their Boyfriend, dutifully run out to say, “Phony Scandal!”

That is in reference to a John Sexton’s Breitbart.com article about the real reasons for all the hush-hush on Benghazi. This is, as I said last month, “The Big Benghazi Secret,” except it isn’t really secret. Plenty of reporters have had the basic story (or part of it) for months.

Anyway, I’m sorry if it seemed like I was ignoring the news, but sometimes the media bias — Our Patiently Brilliant President, isn’t he so special? — is such a Hoover Dam bulwark against truth that I don’t even feel like complaining about it anymore.

What difference, at this point, does it make?

Then I check in over at AOSHQ, and the dude is just killin’ it — knocking it out of the park like A-Rod in roid-rage mode — and I feel ashamed of myself for not at least trying to add something.

OK, so I tried. And now go read AOSHQ, because I do, every day.

 

Hunting the Syrian Squirrel

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“Obama: Anatomy of a World Leader,” by Alex Gray (detail)

You’re not supposed to say that The Syrian Crisis has been manufactured for domestic political purposes. The underlying situation is legitimately serious enough — a two-year civil war in which the dictatorship has allegedly used sarin nerve gas against civilians.

The problem is that this administration is so dishonest and cynical, so committed to campaigning and so inept at governing, that whatever they do, our natural suspicion is that they’re playing politics.

Serious People therefore cannot say what a lot of people suspect: When Congress returned from their August recess, they were due to have hearings on a series of Obama administration scandals — IRS, NSA and especially, Benghazi. By ginning up an international crisis over Syria, Obama was basically shouting: “Look! Squirrel!”

If Syria is the Big Story that all Serious People are supposed to be talking about, all the scandal investigations — IRS, NSA, Benghazi — became by definition Small Stories for Unserious People.

SYRIA SAYS IT ACCEPTED
RUSSIAN WEAPONS PROPOSAL
— Associated Press

Syria accepts Russian proposal on weapons;
France to bring resolution to Security Council
— Washington Post

Obama Backs Idea for Syria to Cede Control of Arms
— New York Times

“Did John Kerry just River
himself a Royal Flush?!?!? Wow!”
— AOSHQ

OK, there’s the requisite Syria News Headline Stack, and I can therefore say I’ve done my quota, so all you Serious People who have been running around on the Syrian Squirrel Hunt can stop mocking my unseriousness for ignoring the Big Story.

Tomorrow? Yeah, the one-year anniversary of the Benghazi attack, and all anyone will be talking about is the president’s Syria speech.

Tell me again how serious you are, Serious People.

You just got played.

Chumps.

 

@Alyssa_Milano Releases Sex Tape as ‘Social Statement’ (Alex Jones Is Nuts)

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As soon as I saw ALYSSA MILANO SEX TAPE, you know I had to click the link, and was momentarily afraid Becca Lower was linking video from a certain 1995 exploitation flick that shall not be named. (“Never mention that movie . . . she hates that movie,” a friend advised me not long after I began my long quest for an Alyssa Milano re-Tweet.)

After watching the ALYSSA MILANO SEX TAPE, I Tweeted:

It seemed to me the video was a bit pro-war, and my profound skepticism about the Syria situation is well-known, but I honestly didn’t think that Alyssa Milano would actually reply:

The “sex-tape” is not a political statement. It is a social statement of how Americans are more likely to click on a link labeled “sex-tape” than they are legitimate news.

This a legitimate point: Whether you are for or against this Syria intervention — and as readers know, I’m against it — you at least ought to be informed about it. And you should not be misinformed or disinformed about it, as is the case with Alex Jones’s audience:

“War whore”? Alex Jones is a despicable conspiracy theorist who spent years pushing 9/11 Truther nonsense. At the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Alex Jones spotted Michelle Malkin at a protest and he started shouting “neocon” and a bunch of other stuff, which incited some protesters to start chanting, “Kill Michelle Malkin.”

If it hadn’t been for Charlie Martin and Jim Hoft being there to defend her, who knows what might have happened?

I’ve hated that dangerous kookball ever since, and the fact that Alex Jones is now smearing a liberal like Alyssa Milano (while, characteristically, ranting about the “New World Order”) goes to show just how little Alex Jones’s paranoid anger has to do with actual politics.

Alex Jones is worse than those idiot liberals who were raging because Alyssa Milano appeared on Fox and Friends this week.

If anybody needs rational arguments against the Syria intervention, I’ll be happy to provide them, but you’re not going to get any rational arguments from Alex Jones about anything.

And now, if you haven’t clicked ALYSSA MILANO SEX TAPE yet, go ahead and do it, and you can thank Alyssa Milano on Twitter.

UPDATE: Linked by Donald Douglas at American Power — thanks! — and Andrew Marcus shares his video of the 2008 DNC confrontation with Alex Jones:

Watch that video, with Jones calling Malkin “evil” and a “monster” and shouting, “She wants to put us in camps!” and you realize that this is a guy affected with serious psychiatric issues.

“Crazy” is not a political philosophy.

Also keep an eye out for the way Charlie Martin (the big stocky guy) doesn’t let Alex Jones intimidate him. Jim Hoft was great there, too, but everyone agreed Charlie was a superstar that day.

 

Who Knew @BarackObama Was A Fan Of @Vadum’s Old Band, Focus?

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by Smitty

If only the United Nations were half as good as Matt Vadum’s old band Focus. Check out Matthew’s yodeling while occupying the ivories in this classic performance:

If the U.N. actually rocked like that, Barack-man wouldn’t have to put up a red line. And he certainly wouldn’t call the efforts of the world’s premier diplomatic train wreck “Hocus Pocus”.
And who juiced Walter Russell Mead’s coffee?

Now the President is twisting lonesomely in the wind, and the question is whether Congress will ride to the rescue. If it doesn’t, it will be the closest thing the American system has to a parliamentary vote of “no confidence”, where Congress explicitly declares to the world that the President of the United States does not speak for the country.

That would be very dangerous. Foreigners will no longer know when and whether to take anything this President says as representing American policy rather than his own editorial opinions. We hate to say it, but that is so dangerous that there’s a strong argument for Congress to back the Syria resolution simply to avoid trashing the credibility of the only President we’ve got.

Bulls hit the rodeo clown quite roughly, do they not?

Hopefully between now and his next personal pronoun-fest (press conference), #OccupyResoluteDesk can figure out:

  • what actual national security skin the U.S. has in this game,
  • what international law fig leaf he will have to cover his six (Nobel Peace Prizes don’t count),
  • what the U.S. exit criteria are,
  • just what the flippy-flop we’re going to do if that Middle East reacts poorly to John Kerry’s attempt at an exorcism:

via Instapundit

Could the Creepy Orwellian Vibe at MSNBC Possibly Get Any Creepier?

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Ken Shepherd at Newsbusters notices that MSNBC’s Facebook page is basically publishing pro-Obama propaganda memes:

 

Ace of Spades highlighted this, and I was tempted to write an entire post explaining how MSNBC has maneuvered itself into its current bizarre predicament as The Bomb Syria Now Network.

I Watch MSNBC So You Don’t Have To™ and I can report that it’s Crazyville over there nowadays. Viewers must find themselves waxing nostalgic for the calm and reasoned voice of Keith Olbermann.

The other day, I saw Andrea Mitchell interview Bill Kristol on MSNBC and, if you have any memory at all, you know that Kristol was the Evil Neo-Con Liberals Hated Even More Than Karl Rove during the Bush era. This morning, I woke up early and caught the 4 a.m. replay of Rachel Maddow, and she was so rabidly pro-war you half-expected her to break out into the “Patton” monologue:

Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.
Men, all this stuff you’ve heard about America not wanting to fight — wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.

What the hell has happened to MSNBC? Like I said, I was tempted to write an entire post explaining it, but then I decided to save that for a Monday column at The American Spectator. But having unfairly teased readers with this idea, now I’ll let you guys help me write the column. (Future headline at Media Matters: “Right-Wing Blogger Plagiarizes His Commenters.”) One of the texts by which I intend to analyze MSNBC is this 2003 item, “An Evening With Eric Alterman.”

See where I’m going with this one? Share you insights in the comments. Link your research. Make it easier for me to write that column.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

UPDATE II: “Feckless Mendacity Marks the Fall of the Unicorn King.”

 

 


#Syria: Liberals Finally Beginning to Notice Obama Isn’t Really All That?

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Governing is so much harder than campaigning:

Chris Matthews of MSNBC, who served on Capitol Hill for years as a top Democratic aide, put the party’s dilemma in stark terms on Wednesday: “I think the Democrats are going to be forced to sacrifice men and women who really, really don’t want to vote for this. They’re going to have to vote for it to save the president’s hide. That’s a bad position to put your party in.”

MSNBC reports:

In its lobbying effort to get support for military intervention in Syria, the Obama administration now has one clear target: the left. Yesterday, per the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, White House officials held a conference call with House progressives. Today, Secretary of State John Kerry chats with liberal bloggers, and he also sits down for an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. Here’s the logic behind the effort: Locking down House Democratic — and liberal — votes allows the White House to go back to House Speaker John Boehner to get the remainder of available Republican votes. But the White House will have to deliver a large share of Democratic votes. And consequently, we can report that momentum is growing for President Obama to address the nation in a primetime speech. If Democrats — many of whom were elected in the aftermath of Iraq — are going to have to cast a tough vote for military intervention, they’re going to need cover from Obama.

What’s amazing is that Obama has turned what should have been a simple decision into this grinding ordeal. If all we’re talking about is lobbing some missiles at Damascus, Obama could have ordered that and explained it later. George W. Bush would not have hesitated.

It’s like, you never ask your wife for permission to go play poker. You tell your wife you’re going to go play poker — or, perhaps, you don’t even tell her, you just go, and explain it later.

But because Obama wanted to give the appearance of acting on behalf of a coalition — in the name of “the international community” — he has turned this into a huge drama. I’m not in favor of attacking Syria (and according to a survey of conservative bloggers by John Hawkins, I’m not alone in my opposition), but either you do it or you don’t.

This drawn-out phony “debate” is just annoying. It looks weak, and weakness is synonymous with failure in foreign policy. Anyway, here are the latest headlines:

President Obama could lose
big on Syria in House 
— Politico

Obama needs game-changer
to win House vote on Syria 
— The Hill

The “no’s” keep piling up on
Syria resolution in the House
— Washington Post

President Obama Considers
Address to Nation on Syria
— ABC News

Do it or don’t, but stop all this hand-wringing. Ali Akbar and I discussed Syria, among other things, in a two-hour podcast Wednesday.

 

 

#Syria: ‘Just Thinking Out Loud’

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John Kerry’s testimony today about Syria was tremendously encouraging — to the Assad regime, and to America-haters everywhere, who are certainly exultant that this idiot is now Secretary of State.

The very fact that John Kerry thinks this policy is a good idea is pretty much an ironclad guarantee that it will be a complete disaster.

“Bipartisan compromise” — another guarantee of failure.

Anyway, I had the TV on MSNBC all day, and it’s weird how these erstwhile pacifists are now raving like the neocon warhawks they warned us against. Their bellicose rhetoric was shocking — Rachel Maddow sounded like a bloodthirsty killer — and quite strange.

UPDATE: John Sexton has also noticed the weirdness at “MSNBC: The Place for War,” and Ed Driscoll has further thoughts on the hopeless failure of Democrat “smart diplomacy” foreign policy.

UPDATE II: Quite literally, I laughed out loud:

Kerry: Obama will not puts boots on the ground,
unless this mission fails, which it is expressly
designed to do, and what are the odds of that?

It would be a lot funnier, if it wasn’t so damned true.

 

DIE, HIPPIES! Instead of Bombing Syria, Why Don’t We Bomb Code Pink Instead?

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First, bad arguments for bad policy:

The U.S. decision to take military action in Syria is not about President Obama’s “red line” on the use of chemical weapons, Secretary of State John Kerry told senators Tuesday.

You can never go wrong, doing the opposite of what John Kerry says. Being against this stupid policy, however, means that I’m on the same side of the issue as those wretched Code Pink hippies.