What happens if the Obama administration’s Syria resolution is defeated in Congress? Many Beltway pundits are breathlessly proclaiming that such an outcome would definitely, immediately, irrevocably transform the president into a lame duck forever and ever.
I think that’s bullshit. Yes, it would be a high-profile defeat. But the Beltway types are prone to inventing neat, round narrative holes before events actually take place and then attempting to pound the square pegs of subsequent facts into them until the entire framework disintegrates — or until events can be spun into vindication of their preconceived narratives. In either case, it’s neither reporting nor honest analysis.
My take is that the proposed Syria intervention is a huge fucking mistake on the part of the Obama administration. I hope the resolution is defeated and contacted my congresscritters yesterday to make this view known.
If the resolution goes down, it would be fair to say Obama stepped on a rake politically — regardless of the merits of the proposal. But the predictions of political doom seem overblown. Clinton still got stuff done and got reelected after his healthcare reform attempt went down in flames, and Bush still managed to keep screwing us royally after he stomped his own pee-pee during the attempt to turn Social Security over to the Wall Street jackals.
But it’s tough to use past presidencies as a yardstick since Obama has been dealing with a Congress that is as chock-full of lunatics as any we’ve seen since before the Civil War. What do y’all think? Will it pass or not? What will the fallout be from either scenario?