Patterico's Pontifications

9/13/2013

Americans for Whatever Barack Obama Wants Feeling Pretty Stoked by Assad’s Game-Playing

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:32 am



The Great Ad-Libbed Charade Diplomatic Solution to the Great Ad-libbed Syrian Crisis is hitting some rough spots. John Kerry is rejecting Assad’s one-month timetable to submit data on his chemical weapons. Apparently, Kerry is shocked to learn that the immediate turnover that he had proclaimed could never happen, is not going to happen.

When it finally becomes so clear that Assad and Putin are playing games that even the media gets it, what then? Go back to Congress? I doubt it. With useful idiots like John McCain and Lindsey Graham arguing that Obama could still bomb Syria, even without Congessional approval, Obama still obviously has unilateral action on the table. The idiots argue that Presidents have acted unilaterally many times before, citing a list of supposed precedents — even though, as Tom Woods notes:

[T]he great presidential scholar Edward S. Corwin pointed out that this lengthy list of alleged precedents consisted mainly of “fights with pirates, landings of small naval contingents on barbarous or semi-barbarous coasts, the dispatch of small bodies of troops to chase bandits or cattle rustlers across the Mexican border, and the like.”

To support their position, therefore, the neoconservatives and their left-liberal clones are counting chases of cattle rustlers as examples of presidential warmaking, and as precedents for sending millions of Americans into war with foreign governments on the other side of the globe.

This video is still relevant: Second City’s Kickstarter campaign to kickstart World War III, by Americans for Whatever Barack Obama Wants. My favorite is the Obama supporter who describes himself as a “scholar on social policy and a barista.”

Thanks to Simon Jester for that.

15 Responses to “Americans for Whatever Barack Obama Wants Feeling Pretty Stoked by Assad’s Game-Playing”

  1. if Putin says it’s not a game then I believe him

    He’s a very strong leader.

    happyfeet (c60db2)

  2. Well, first of all, Putin and Assad may miscalculate and do something that would give Obama a victory in Congress.

    If not, the most likely course would seem to be seriously arming the Free Syrian Army, accompanied by an airstrike designed not to do much harm. That will be the end of direct U.S. military operations, provided Assad pretends to be chastened.

    A cry of victory will not do. He’s got to pretend it hurts. Obama will probably also hold him to anything he agrees to in an attempt to avert a air strike.

    Of course also, it is that he never uses chemical weapons again.

    If not, there’s Part II.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  3. Here’s something to chew on, friends—

    “I think I understand the Senate better than any man or women who’s ever served in there, and I think I understand the House. …”

    Slow Joe Biden on Thurday in the run up to his “Republicans are Neanderthals” comment.

    elissa (bf3931)

  4. My favorite is the Obama supporter who describes himself as a “scholar on social policy and a barista.”

    yep he’s the funniest one by far, esp at 3:12-3:16. LOL – great vid. Isn’t Second City liberal? Just wow.

    no one of consequence (325a59)

  5. Barack Obama isn’t trying to start World War III.

    He’s trying to prevent it, or more exactly, to prevent nuclear deterrence from appearing to be a sham, which is the next thing that could happen after deterrence against the use of chemical weapons turns into a sham.

    It’s Bashir Assad and Vladimir Putin who are trying to pretend this could start World War III, or at least the “Third World” war. They seem to be comparing this to the beginning of World War I.

    And Barack Obama doesn’t believe them. He’s prepared to call their bluff on that.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  6. Oh man, that video really cheered me up.

    DejectedHead (a094a6)

  7. Brilliant satire. Isn’t it fascinating how the happy, smiling faces can alter your perception of what they are saying? There’s some new brain research discussed in Subliminal that demonstrates that the active elements of the brain can be influenced by expectations. So, for example, if you tell a taster that a wine is very expensive prior to tasting, the areas of the brain involved in the tasting are different than they would be otherwise. And these areas tend to produce happier feelings … so the wine tastes better. Ditto our pleasure over watching the young lady enthus over raising $1.6 tillion for WWIII and maybe WWIV.

    Also pleased to see elissa’s report that they have sobered Slow Joe up and have released him on the press. This is always good for a few laughs.

    The link to Tom Woods is very interesting also. His article contains a link that describes a his argument with Mark Levin over the constitutionality of war-making in the absence of Congressional action. I enjoy Levin and it was eye opening to see how his distain and treatment of crtitics is indiscriminate and ad hominem. Which of course, I enjoy when he is applying the technique to our A. G. Holder, but not so much when there is something substantive to discuss.

    bobathome (c0c2b5)

  8. #5: I challenge anyone to give a coherent rationale for the last two weeks of contradictions, misstatements of fact, and gross miscalculations that characterize the administration’s response to the Syrian crisis.
    More likely than the wishful thinking exhibited above is the simple fact that these people have absolutely no idea what they are doing, coupled with an unfortunate tendency of our Dear Leader to believe his own (baloney). Off the cuff threats about “red lines” may sound impressive to his supporters, but to blood soaked tyrants like Assad they do not resonate.

    frank johnson (5daf3f)

  9. The linked article from Tom Woods is excellent. It exposes the basic facts of Constitutional limitations on Executive Branch war making powers.

    ropelight (e98634)

  10. == Isn’t Second City liberal?==

    They are first and foremost a comedy troupe with an emphasis on improv and biting social commentary using observation and inside jokes. The Chicago political scene and politicians (mostly Dem) have kept them in business and in fine fettle for years. They are equal opportunity brutal toward idiocy. The right, and celebs of all sorts (especially sports) get skewered too.

    elissa (bf3931)

  11. Hybrid Prius tanks !

    Elephant Stone (6a6f37)

  12. #8: ” I challenge anyone to give a coherent rationale for the last two weeks of contradictions, misstatements of fact, and gross miscalculations that characterize the administration’s response to the Syrian crisis.”

    Sequestration…it can literally be used to blame anything.

    DejectedHead (a094a6)

  13. They are first and foremost a comedy troupe with an emphasis on improv and biting social commentary using observation and inside jokes. The Chicago political scene and politicians (mostly Dem) have kept them in business and in fine fettle for years. They are equal opportunity brutal toward idiocy. The right, and celebs of all sorts (especially sports) get skewered too.

    Comment by elissa (bf3931) — 9/13/2013 @ 10:06 am

    thanks, elissa, for the catchup (mostly heard about them in the 80s or something).

    (just btw, I love reading phrases like “in fine fettle” in blog comment sections 🙂 #hopefortheEnglishlanguage)

    no one of consequence (325a59)

  14. I read the Tom Woods stuff and found it to be self-refuting.

    Sort of like people who try to argue that the Second Amendment allows them to ban assault rifles. It patently doesn’t, because assault rifles are clearly common militia weapons that everyone within reason needs to know how to use at a moment’s notice. Claiming otherwise is self-refuting, the definitions are there in the text.

    The President is the commander in chief of the armed forces, the Congress issues the declarations of war, and with the War Powers act they have evolved various ways of sending harsher and harsher messages to one another in a system of checks and balances. How hard is that?

    luagha (5cbe06)

  15. fj, SF is the last person to challenge for either coherence, or rationality – unless he can cut&paste it.

    askeptic (b8ab92)


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