By Andrew McCarthy, NRO
Here is where we’re at: The Republican establishment — the guys who
told us that for a trillion dollars and several thousand American
casualties, we could build “Islamic democracies” that would be reliable
U.S. allies in the War on Terror — say it is Ted Cruz who is
“delusional” and the effort to stave off Obamacare that is
“unattainable.”
These self-appointed sages are, of course, the same guys who told us
the way to “stabilize” and “democratize” Libya was to help jihadists
topple and kill the resident dictator — who, at the time, was a U.S.
ally, providing intelligence about the jihadists using his eastern
badlands as a springboard for the anti-American terror insurgency in
Iraq. That’s probably worth remembering this week, during which some of
our new “allies” abducted Libya’s president while others car-bombed
Sweden’s consulate in Benghazi — site of the still unavenged terrorist
massacre of American ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other
U.S. officials 13 months ago.
Not to worry, though. So successful do they figure the Libyan escapade
was, GOP leaders are backing a reprise in Syria. It is there, we learn
from a Human Rights Watch report issued this week, that our new
“allies,” the al-Qaeda-rife “rebels,” executed a savage atrocity just
two months ago. Sweeping into the coastal village of Latakia, the
jihadists slaughtered 190 minority Alawites. As the New York Times
details, “at least 67 of the dead appeared to have been shot or stabbed
while unarmed or fleeing, including 48 women and 11 children.” More than
200 other civilians were captured and are still being held hostage.
So that’s going well.
And, you’ll be pleased to know, supporting the Syrian “rebels” is a
high enough priority that it’s not part of the 17 percent of the federal
government affected by the “shutdown.” America’s enemies are still
receiving taxpayer-funded weapons, so that they can fight America’s
other enemies, the Assad regime, to what Washington hopes will be a
resounding victory. Er . . . check that — to what the administration
hopes will be . . . a tie. The administration also let slip
this week that it is arming our preferred jihadists so they can grind
to a stalemate with Russia’s preferred jihadists — after all, we
wouldn’t want to upset Iran’s ruling jihadists after they’ve just
finally deigned to take, yes, a phone call from our pleading president
after blowing him off in New York.
So support for the Syrian jihad remains unaffected by the shutdown,
just like the Capitol Hill gym and Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!”
website. Obama did manage, however, to cut off death benefits for the
families of American troops killed fighting for our country. Or at least
our conniving Alinsky-in-chief thought he’d succeeded in cutting off
the military death benefits — along with forcible closures of war-hero
cemeteries, national monuments, private homes, and the ocean.
It turned out he’d miscalculated.
President I Will Not Negotiate ended up negotiating, and then quietly
paying bereaved military families, because he discovered, to his
astonishment, that the public would hold him, not Republicans,
responsible for this unspeakable breach of faith. He’d thought he had
that covered. After all, as the Republican establishment repeatedly
tells us, Obama’s media always blame the GOP — thus making it
“delusional” for the GOP to stand up and fight about anything.
The president was caught by the strategy devised by the delusional
rubes who want to exercise Congress’s prerogative not to fund Obamacare —
a purportedly unattainable goal, notwithstanding that the prerogative
is rooted in the Constitution, in marked contrast to Obama’s own
selective waivers of Obamacare, which are apparently rooted in . . .
Obama.
See, in order to demonstrate beyond cavil that they were being
reasonable, notwithstanding huge objections to the current unsustainable
$3.6 trillion trough of federal spending, conservatives volunteered to
fund everything the government does except Obamacare. The administration
and its scribes shrieked, of course, but there is nothing illegal or
unusual about withholding appropriations for federal programs. The
government does it every year. Obama himself does it, not just in
refusing to enforce the federal immigration laws (to take just one
example) but in refusing to execute aspects of Obamacare that harm
preferred corporations, union cronies, and Congress.
As expected, our petulant president refused the deal, directing his
minions to forge ahead full-speed on his signature socialization of
health care — never mind its unpopularity, unconstitutionality, and
unreadiness for implementation. Meantime, he schemed to make the
shutdown he was forcing as painful as possible. The mainstream-media
division of the White House press operation would then, he figured,
dutifully blame Republicans for the inevitable public outcry, and the
GOP would instantly unfurl its ever-ready white flag.
But instead of waving the flag, House conservatives decided to wave a
series of appropriations bills: bite-size portions of the mega-funding
the president had already refused — a page out of the Left’s book,
offering heartstring-tugging dollars for Head Start, disadvantaged women
and children, cancer patients, emergency responders, national-parks
operation, city services for Washington residents, etc. Obama thumbed
his nose at these House overtures, banked on the press’s refusal to
cover them, and went merrily about the business of scalding Republicans
over a government shutdown that he was actually causing.
Except Obama let one bill get by: the House’s Pay Our Military Act
(POMA). Why? Because Obama needs to hold Senate Democrats in lockstep
“no” mode, but even they would not sign on to refusing to pay our troops
in wartime. So the bill was passed — proving that, as the delusional
Ted Cruz maintains, Democrats can be moved if unified Republicans make
the pressure intense enough.
Posted by Ted Belman
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