Reading list on Obama's Syrian conundrum

Syria Red Line  ...."Anyway, It looks like Assad has jumped the Red Line. Now we have to respond or lose credibility and, according to the polls, the American people have no stomach for another war."

 

Commentary Mag; About That Special Relationship  "Some are fretting about whether the special relationship that has bound the United States and the United Kingdom since World War II has been damaged by the House of Common’s vote against British participation in Syria and Prime Minister’s David Cameron’s decision to accept the Commons’ verdict. The New York Times’ Roger Cohen, who has been writing from the UK for some time now, says in his column today that “Britain’s decision not to stand with the United States, its closest ally, in possible military action to punish the Syrian regime for a deadly chemical weapons attack marks a watershed moment that leaves the ‘special relationship’ in search of meaning and Britain in search of its role in the world.”
Obama should have kept that bust of Winston Churchill.

Caroline Glick; Obama's bread and circuses  ...."The most important of those questions are: What US interests are at stake in Syria? How should the US go about advancing them? What does Syria's use of chemical weapons means for the US's position in the region? How would the planned US military action in Syria impact US deterrent strength, national interests and credibility regionally and worldwide? Syria is not an easy case. Thirty months into the war there, it is clear that the good guys, such as they are, are not in a position to win."

Jennifer Rubin; 10 things you need to know about Kerry’s remarks
"Secretary of State John Kerry just delivered a compelling case for military action against
Iraq Syria. Here is what you need to know:"....
Reason number eight was my personal favorite:

On a personal level this is tremendous vindication for the Bush administration and those who were vilified. It turns out unilateral action based on a combination of humanitarian and strategic based on intelligence about WMD use is justified. That said, the difference may be that George W Bush did something about it and Kerry’s boss, who won’t come out of the witness-protection program, isn’t likely to remove Bashar al-Assad in the way Bush took out Sadaam Hussein.

From Germany; Humanitarian Aid Is Possible

"It is most unfortunate that Obama has pushed himself into a corner with his talk of a “red line.” Getting himself out of this situation will come with heavy consequences: He will be publicly portrayed as a toothless tiger."

 

Assad may hit back at Israel for US strike, trusting Obama to tie Israel’s hands against major reprisal 

 “Anything that happens in this area is in Israel’s interest. Such aggression will first of all benefit Israel, secondly, the military efforts of Al Nusra, al Qaeda’s armed group in Syria. “So the Americans would be serving Israel first and Al Qaeda second.”

Mark Steyn; Perfunctory and ineffectual war-making in Syria is worse than nothing.
I see the Obama “reset” is going so swimmingly that the president is now threatening to go to war against a dictator who gassed his own people. Don’t worry, this isn’t anything like the dictator who gassed his own people that the discredited warmonger Bush spent 2002 and early 2003 staggering ever more punchily around the country inveighing against. The 2003 dictator who gassed his own people was the leader of the Baath Party of Iraq. The 2013 dictator who gassed his own people is the leader of the Baath Party of Syria. Whole other ball of wax.

Shamed into War

Charles Krauthammer

 If Obama is going to strike Syria, he should do it constitutionally and with purpose.

"Having leaked to the world, and thus to Syrian president Bashar Assad, a detailed briefing of the coming U.S. air attack on Syria — (1) the source (offshore warships and perhaps a bomber or two), (2) the weapon (cruise missiles), (3) the duration (two or three days), (4) the purpose (punishment, not “regime change”) — perhaps we should be publishing the exact time the bombs will fall, lest we disrupt dinner in Damascus.

"So much for the element of surprise. Into his third year of dithering, two years after declaring Assad had to go, one year after drawing — then erasing — his own red line on chemical weapons, Barack Obama has been stirred to action." 

The Pros and Cons of Attacking Syria  "PJ Media's columnists weigh in on intervening in Syria as the Obama administration decides how to respond to the use of chemical weapons. Updated: Michael Ledeen, Victor Davis Hanson and Roger Kimball provide their analyses."

It’s pointless to take potshots at Obama for failing to act on Syria. What we should say is this: “Iran is the main source of instability in the Middle East. Iran’s intervention in Syria has turned the country into a slaughterhouse. By showing weakness to Iran, the Obama administration encourages its murderous activities elsewhere in the region.”

Obama Perpetuates Racial Dissonance

Intellectual Conservative  "What bothers me more than anything is that people who don't know any more than I do, feel they have a right to protest so-called injustice through looting, vandalism and violence as revenge directed toward the innocent."

Big Hollywood on Miley Cyrus

Miley Cyrus' Sexual Act a Far Cry from Days When Music Mattered
"And I will still offer that, based on the VMAs, with the exception of a few outcroppings of talent, the lunar landscape of quality music is pretty barren. Music as a pop art expression has been replaced with prancing divas, thug rappers, coiffed boy bands or barely legal teen angels whose sexual aggression make this father of an adolescent girl cringe.

Miley Cyrus Grabs Crotch Anew for Promotional Photos    ...."The 20-year-old, who has taken to copying Madonna and Rihanna's favoured crotch grabbing move, tries her hand at it again in one shot, where she makes the lewd gesture in a pair of  PVC black and white checked trousers and a white crop top, in front of a neon Bangerz sign. "

"Cyrus exposes part of her behind in another photograph and flashes her thong underwear in another."

Camille Paglia: Miley Cyrus 'Cringingly Unsexy'  "Critic Camille Paglia says the problem with Miley Cyrus' performance at Sunday's VMAs wasn't that it was “Disgusting!” “Raunchy!” Desperate!” as some reviews would have it. The real concert is that the untalented Cyrus doesn’t understand that sexual eroticism without limits that make that eroticism titillating is pointless."

Obama's rhetoric comes up short compared to past presidents

Ed Lasky  "When a President wants to put adversaries on notice, he and his team members should not preemptively tip their hands or display their weakness.
"The Obama administration does both (as well as reveal our secrets and plans) time and time again.
"What a great commander-in-chief."

http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/08/branco-cartoon-red-face/

Nation’s only black Senator not invited to speak at March on Washington

Red Alert Politics    "Noticeably absent from the speaker line-up at the Let Freedom Ring event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington today: the nation’s only black Senator, Tim Scott.  .... was not invited to participate in the historic event, a spokesperson for the Senator confirmed to Red Alert Politics in an email.
"African-American leaders who did receive an invitation to speak at included Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) – who participated in the original March – Martin Luther King III, MSNBC host Al Sharpton and movie stars Jamie Foxx, Oprah Winfrey and Forest Whitaker.
Update: Talking Points Memo is reporting that a source involved in planning the March on Washington says Scott wasn’t invited because he declined to attend the event as a spectator.

 

The Good: Health Care Premiums Will Drop or Stay Same Under Obamacare – The Bad: If You Make Less Than $20K Per Year…

Weasel Zippers  "Apparently the only way to benefit from Obamacare is to live near the poverty line."
Via National Journal:

Whether the quality of care in the new market is comparable to private offerings remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: The cost of care in the new market doesn’t stack up. A single wage earner must make less than $20,000 to see his or her current premiums drop or stay the same under Obamacare, an independent review by National Journal found. That’s equivalent to approximately 34 percent of all single workers in the U.S. seeing any benefit in the new system. For those seeking family-of-four coverage under the ACA, about 43 percent will see cost savings. Families must earn less than or equal to $62,300, or they, too, will be looking at a bigger bill.

Barack Obama uses the March on Washington to attack his opponents. This man is shameless

 

UK Telegraph  "Barack Obama's speech on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington was classic Obama: beautifully delivered, moving, deceptive, divisive, frustrating. And, of course, it was far more about Barack Obama than it was Martin Luther King Jr."

....

"And you wonder why Republicans won't deal with this President? He uses a day that ought to be marked by national unity as an opportunity to deliver a stump speech, even though he's not running for election..... Are we here to celebrate America's genius or damn its failures?

It's Super-Media! With the Power to Detect Non-Existent Racism

Ann Coulter "The media's fixation on the Trayvon Martin case, while ignoring much more brutal crimes with clearer racial motivations, is a return to pre-O.J. America.
"The thesis of my book, "Mugged: Racial Demagoguery From the Seventies to Obama" -- out in paperback this week! -- is that after decades of liberals play-acting Racist America, wherein they cast themselves as civil rights champions, and other, random white people as Bull Connor (a Democrat), it all ended with the O.J. verdict.
"That's when white America said, That's it. The white guilt bank is shut down. It was one of the best things that ever happened to America -- especially for black people."

 

CARSON: MLK would be alarmed by black-on-black violence, lack of family values

Dr. Ben Carson "There was a time when blacks were justifiably angry that the larger community discounted their value, but now, ironically, many members of the black community themselves place little or no value on these precious lives that are snuffed out without thought. I think King would be waging a crusade against the marginalization of black lives in America."

The Naming of Leftist Catastrophes

FreedomWorks  "This week, a global warming climate change alarmist group decided it would be great fun to petition the World Meteorological Organization to start naming violent storms after prominent deniers of their theory, despite a complete lack of evidence that violent storms are any more numerous today than in other years: "[W]e propose a new naming system, one that names

extreme storms caused by climate change, after the political makers who deny climate change and obstruct climate policy.” Well, since the foolhardy pursuit of solutions to this myth, among many others, has caused countless economic and environmental catastrophes, let's turn the tables and name Leftist catastrophes, both economic and environmental, after the prominent progressives who have caused such widespread destruction and suffering."

California pols could target tax status of Boy Scouts, youth groups over 'discrimination'

Joshua Rhett Miller

"California lawmakers are cruising toward a final vote on a bill that could threaten the tax-exempt status of American-as-apple-pie groups — ranging from the Boy Scouts to Little League — if their membership policies are found to be discriminatory. 

"If passed, the bill, SB 323, would remove an exemption from state taxes for any nonprofit youth group that discriminates on the basis of “gender identity, race, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or religious affiliation.” Well-known organizations like Girl Scouts of the USA, Boy Scouts of America, and Little League International Baseball and Softball were cited in the bill, which was introduced in February by Democratic state Sen. Ricardo Lara."