Biden: John Kerry has been “one of the best secretaries of state so far in the history of the United States”

Huh. That’s mighty generous praise, considering that John Kerry has been on the job for barely half of a year, that the administration is in the midst of a major foreign-policy identity crisis after getting trounced by the Russians on Syria, and that we have rather a long historical line of venerable statesmen, but whatever. Details.

Of course, any potential contender doing much of anything in Iowa is going to stir theinevitable 2016 speculation, and as the MSNBCers note, it does feel kind of silly to read too much into anything like this when the race is still so distant. Hey, the Syrian debacle is ongoing, after all, so it’s only natural that Biden would iterate his support for President Obama and his hand-picked team managing (slash, mismanaging) the crisis — what reason does he have to mention Hillary Clinton’s secretary-of-state skills (or lack thereof)? …No, really though — why the heck would he do that? According to yet another new CNN/ORC poll:

It showed 65% of Democrats and independents who lean toward that party say they would likely back Clinton as their presidential nominee. Vice President Joe Biden comes in a distant second, at 10%, with freshman Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts at 7%, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo at 6%, and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley at 2%.

The CNN survey is in line with previous polls from other organizations conducted earlier this year that indicated Clinton, who has not said whether she’ll run, is far ahead of all the other possible Democratic candidates.

Even though the next race for the White House is a long way away, there’s already intense speculation over whether the former secretary of state will make a second bid for president. …

In the potential Democratic battle, the survey indicates Clinton performing better with women (76%) than men (52%). And Biden scores higher with voters age 50 and older (18%) than those younger than 50 (5%).

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/16/biden-john-kerry-has-been-one-of-the-best-secretaries-of-state-so-far-in-the-history-of-the-united-states/

Dems hand Obama big loss on Fed appointment

Republicans took great care in staying out of the skirmish among Senate Democrats over the soon-to-be-open chair of the Federal Reserve.  The White House let it be known that Barack Obama favored Larry Summers for the slot, but liberals pushed Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen instead — which gave the GOP a rare opportunity to flex some muscle on a presidential appointment.  Yesterday, however, Summers raised the white flag:

Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary and senior White House economic adviser, has withdrawn as a candidate for Federal Reserve chairman in a startling development that raises urgent questions about who will lead the central bank when Chairman Ben S. Bernanke steps down in four months.

Summers withdrew after an intense uproar among liberal Democrats, women’s groups and other advocacy organizations against his potential nomination — a highly unusual assault on the candidate who President Obama favored for the job.

That doesn’t mean that Yellen has the gig by default, however.  Obama may start his search all over again:

Obama has said he is considering two other candidates for the post, Fed Vice Chairman Janet L. Yellen and former Fed vice chairman Don Kohn. But he was leaning toward picking Summers, people close to the White House say, and the economist’s decision to take his name out of the ring might lead Obama to pursue a wider range of candidates.

Summers helped Obama navigate the depths of the financial crisis and recession, providing a degree of support that Obama has told aides he deeply valued. No official, with the possible exception of former Treasury secretary Timothy F. Geithner, did more to influence the president’s response to the traumatic events he faced at the beginning of his term, which Obama plans to highlight this week as he marks the fifth anniversary of the financial crisis.

Speaking of Turbo Tax Tim, guess whose name has already arisen in the wake of Summers’ retreat? So far, though, Geithner isn’t expressing any interest in fighting for another appointment:

Former Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner isn’t interested in serving as Federal Reserve Chairman after Lawrence Summers today withdrew from consideration for the post, according to a person familiar with Geithner’s thinking.

Geithner, who has consulted with President Barack Obama on whom to nominate, remains firm in his stance even after Summers informed Obama he no longer wished to be considered as a possible nominee to lead the central bank, according to the person, who asked not to be identified.

A Geithner appointment would almost certainly galvanize Senate Republicans as an overtly political move, while keeping the Democratic caucus split over another bypass of Yellen.  With Summers out, it’s difficult to see how Obama could bypass Yellen after this episode — which the Atlantic’s David Graham writes is an unequivocal defeat for Obama:

Until Sunday afternoon, these seemed like just the latest skirmishes in a war. In July, almost a third of the Democrats in the Senate sent a letter to Obama imploring him to appoint Janet Yellen to the job instead. While the letter didn’t mention Summers, it was clearly a rebuke to the White House’s reported preference. Progressives worried that Summers was too much a part of the Clinton-era economic team that they charged with helping to make the Great Recession possible, and they argued that Yellen had been right more frequently on crucial recent economic issues.

But Obama was reportedly angry at the letter, and dispatched aides to Capitol Hill to vent and get the troops in line. While Majority Leader Harry Reid promised to support whomever the president picked, he apparently wasn’t able to keep his caucus completely in line, leading to today’s withdrawal. …

In August, Jeffrey Smith argued on The Atlantic that liberals actually deserved Summers because they’d been so unwilling to learn the lessons of the Tea Party and challenge centrist Democrats to stop things like this nomination. Yet on Syria and now on Summers, Senate and House leaders have shown themselves unwilling or unable to unify their caucus behind the president. Maybe Republicans don’t have a monolopy on disarray after all.

Jonathan Allen pins the blame squarely on Obama at Politico, and argues that it’s part of a pattern of incompetence in dealing with personnel matters that leaves friends twisting in the wind:

Barack Obama’s got a knack for turning trial balloons into piñatas, and then leaving his allies to pick up the mess.

The pattern: He floats a buddy for a top job early, deliberates long enough for the opposition to gather steam, defends his pal too late to do any good and then regretfully accepts defeat.

First it was Susan Rice, his choice for secretary of state. Now, Larry Summers has withdrawn from consideration to become the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. Their candidacies were so poorly handled that neither ever made it to the stage of being nominated, much less getting blocked — or voted down — by the Senate.

And the pattern of weakness has been even broader than that:

A larger question is of the president’s toughness. Liberal Democrats rallied against a Summers nomination. In another debate that never came up for a vote the White House could have easily lost, Obama was led into asking Congress for approval to bomb Syria. His summer-long fight with Russian President Vladimir Putin over NSA leaker Edward Snowden and the Syria issue has also hurt.

“It’s a consistent pattern where he says he’s going to do something, says he’s really going to fight for it, and then buckles the moment there’s any opposition,” said one veteran Democratic strategist. “It’s like the kiss of death if he wants if you for a job.”

Indeed.  The difference between Summers and Yellen are far less significant than the pattern of weakness and vacillation that have come from this White House in 2013, and the implications for domestic and foreign policy are potentially vast.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/16/dems-hand-obama-big-loss-on-fed-appointment/

Obama to Iran: Just because my “red line” for Syria was unserious doesn’t mean my “red line” for you is

Iran must know: We will not tolerate a rogue regime obtaining weapons of mass destruction. Or, maybe we’ll tolerate it, but we won’t tolerate those weapons actually being used. More than once. Or a few times, as long as they’re small-scale attacks. But if you use them once in a large-scale attack, then you’ll be staring at the firm possibility of a U.S. attack. Unless Vladimir Putin comes up with a plan that gets us off the hook from having to follow through at the eleventh hour.

Actually, I’m probably in a small minority on the right in thinking that he’s kinda sorta serious about what he’s saying here. Obama didn’t cancel the bombing of Assad because he’s too dovish to punch a Shiite terrorist monster in the face. He did it because he knew the attack would be unpopular at home and he wanted political cover from Congress. When they wouldn’t give it to him, he chickened out. The same won’t be true of an attack on Iran. Iran looms large in the American consciousness as a potential threat for lots of reasons — decades of anti-Americanism starting with the hostage crisis; international terrorist attacks spanning years; eliminationist antagonism and Holocaust denial towards Israel; abundant media coverage of its meddling in Iraq to undermine the U.S.; and the simple fact that a key enemy building nuclear weapons is a nightmare scenario for the public, especially as Iran’s missile program becomes more sophisticated. One of the core problems of selling American voters on a Syria attack was explaining why Assad is a threat to the United States. Obama won’t have that problem with Iran, and he won’t see the same resistance on the Hill from Democrats and Republicans who have lived with the Iranian nuke kabuki for a long time.

As for O himself, the more Putin and his lackeys rub his face in his humiliation, and the more deleterious fallout there is internationally from his refusal to act against Assad, the more he’ll want to reverse the trend by following through with Iran if it comes to that. Maybe that means simply greenlighting an Israeli attack and preparing defensive measures in case Iran retaliates against the U.S., or maybe it means leading the attack himself. But if U.S. enemies take his Syria weakness as a provocation, he’ll be more likely to hit Iran, I think, than he otherwise might. Beware a wounded lame duck with a gigantic ego who’s worried about his “legacy” being eight years of ineffectual dithering on a rising, soon-to-be nuclear-armed, enemy power.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/16/obama-to-iran-just-because-my-red-line-for-syria-was-unserious-doesnt-mean-my-red-line-for-you-is/

Carney: It was entirely appropriate for Obama to knock the GOP over the financial crisis while the Navy Yard was in lockdown

Via RCP, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Who needs false piety from the White House at this point? One of the hallmarks of O’s approach to policy is sticking to his agenda even when major events try to intrude. That’s why he’s had to pivot to jobs 75 times in the past five years: It may be the public’s top priority but it’s sufficiently second-tier to him that he tends to return to it only when he’s momentarily finished with another, more important concern. He passed the stimulus in 2009, then spent more than a year pushing ObamaCare through even though the public was still frantic for economic help. Four years and a Republican House majority later, he’s still paying the price. He and Chuck Schumer decided that his second term was ripe for a big immigration push, even though the persistently weak recovery and the damage being done by O-Care to full-time employment make this a … sub-optimal time economically to sell amnesty. Even when he’s been opportunistic in shifting priorities due to an unforeseen crisis, it’s right in line with the left’s evergreen policy wishlist. He probably wouldn’t have pursued gun control to start his second term if not for Sandy Hook, but once that happened, the liberal dream of new federal gun regs seemed less quixotic than it normally is. Thus it came to be that a guy who got reelected running as a champion of middle-class economic interests decided to crap a few months away mumbling about background checks.

I think this is also why he seems less perturbed accepting Putin’s sham “compromise” on Syria than the rest of America. Ridding Assad of his WMD was never on his agenda; it was something he stumbled into with his “red line” comment and then felt obliged to stand firm-ish on to keep up appearances. All things considered, he’d much rather be talking about amnesty or assault weapons or whatever. When Assad embarrassed him with a major gas attack, he thought briefly of following through with a strike but then probably realized that if he did something, Syria would eat up even more of his agenda than it already had. So he went to Congress to stall, and then when that didn’t work out, he took Putin’s dumb deal. Look at it this way: How much does the guy really care if he’s out on the links at a moment when his staff was frantically dialing members of Congress on the Hill to round up support before the big Syria vote? He had an agenda — golfing — and no big vote on Assad’s WMD was going to interrupt that. Likewise, he had an agenda today — beating up on Republicans over the financial crisis — and no mass shooting was going to interrupt that. Be thankful he finally decided (just within the past few hours) to cancel the big Latin music festival at the White House tonight. I’m sure it wasn’t done without some reluctance.

Exit quotation via Weasel Zippers:

REPORTER: Very quickly — and I think Ed alluded to this, but I just want to be clear — was there any consideration by the White House, given that there was an active manhunt, like, four miles away, to cancel today’s economic remarks?

MR. CARNEY: No.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/16/carney-it-was-entirely-appropriate-for-obama-to-knock-the-gop-over-the-financial-crisis-while-the-navy-yard-was-in-lockdown/

INVESTIGATORS: SOCIAL SECURITY MAY HAVE PAID OUT $1.3B TO PEOPLE GAMING THE SYSTEM

WASHINGTON (AP) — Social Security made $1.3 billion in potentially improper disability payments to people who had jobs when they were supposed to be unable to work, congressional investigators said in a report Friday.

The Government Accountability Office estimated that 36,000 workers got improper payments from December 2010 to January 2013.

The numbers represent less than 1 percent of beneficiaries and less than 1 percent of disability payments made during the time frame. But GAO said the overpayments reveal weaknesses in Social Security’s procedures for policing the system.

“The report lays out clear, common-sense steps that the agency can and should take in order to avoid improper payments,” said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

“However, if we’re serious about preventing waste and fraud and ensuring that these critical benefits get to the people who need and deserve them, Congress must also do its part and provide needed resources and access to basic anti-fraud data to the Social Security Administration.”

The Social Security Administration said its accuracy rate for disability payments is more than 99 percent. But the agency noted that even small errors translate into big numbers.

“We are planning to do an investigation, and we will recoup any improper payments from beneficiaries,” Social Security spokesman Mark Hinkle said. “It is too soon to tell what caused these overpayments, but if we determine that fraud is involved, we will refer these cases to our office of the inspector general for investigation.”

More than 8.2 million disabled workers received disability payments in December 2010, a figure that has grown to nearly 9 million. Last year, the agency paid out $137 billion in disability payments.

Before people can receive disability benefits, there is a 5-month waiting period in which they can, in general, earn no more than about $1,000 a month. The waiting period is to ensure that beneficiaries have long-term disabilities.

Using a federal wage database, investigators checked whether a sample of disability beneficiaries had worked and earned significant wages during the waiting period, the report said. They found that most of the improper payments went to people who worked during the five months they waited for payments to begin.

Once people start receiving benefits, they can return to work and still get benefits during a trial work period, in an attempt to re-enter the workforce. Using the same wage database, investigators checked whether another sample of disability beneficiaries earned significant wages after their trial work period had ended, the report said.

Based on their findings, the GAO estimated the amount of improper payments and the number of people receiving them.

Citing a potential weakness, the report said Social Security might not detect a person who worked during the waiting period if the period started in one year and ended in another. For example, if Social Security starts paying benefits in February, the agency might not detect significant wages earned the previous November because they weren’t earned in the same year that benefits were awarded, the report said.

In a written response to the report, the Social Security Administration agency questioned whether GAO overestimated the amount of overpayments. The agency said investigators did not determine whether the work activity qualified as an unsuccessful attempt to return to work, or whether there were any other special circumstances.

The report comes as Social Security’s disability program faces a financial crisis. If Congress doesn’t act, the trust fund that supports the disability program will run out of money in 2016, according to projections by Social Security’s trustees. At that point, the system will collect only enough money in payroll taxes to pay 80 percent of benefits, triggering an automatic 20 percent cut in benefits.

Congress could redirect money from Social Security’s much bigger retirement program to shore up the disability program, as it did in 1994. But that would worsen the finances of the retirement program, which is facing its own long-term financial problems.

“This report demonstrates just how little importance the Social Security Administration places on policing its disability rolls,” said Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “SSA has known for years that it could prevent millions of dollars in improper disability payments using quarterly wage records, but chose not to.”

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/13/investigators-social-security-may-have-paid-out-1-3b-to-people-gaming-the-system/

Fact Checking Obama: DID OBAMA’S SPEECH SURVIVE A FACT-CHECK?

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama voiced his conviction Tuesday night that Syrian President Bashar Assad was to blame for deadly chemical attacks against civilians, but again he offered no proof.

A look at his remarks to the nation, seeking support for a military strike against Syria, and how they compare with the facts as publicly known:

Credit: Getty Images

OBAMA: “We know the Assad regime was responsible…. The facts cannot be denied.”

THE FACTS: The Obama administration has not laid out proof Assad was behind the attack.

The administration has cited satellite imagery and communications intercepts, backed by social media and intelligence reports from sources in Syria, as the basis for blaming the Assad government. But the only evidence the administration has made public is a collection of videos it has verified of the victims. The videos do not demonstrate who launched the attacks.

Administration officials have not shared the satellite imagery they say shows rockets and artillery fire leaving government-held areas and landing in 12 rebel-held neighborhoods outside Damascus where chemical attacks were reported. Nor have they shared transcripts of the Syrian officials allegedly warning units to ready gas masks or discussing how to handle U.N. investigators after it happened.

The White House has declined to explain where it came up with the figure of at least 1,429 dead, including 400 children – a figure far higher than estimates by nongovernmental agencies such as the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has counted only victims identified by name, with a current total of 502. In his remarks, Obama more generally accused Assad’s forces of gassing to death “over 1,000 people, including hundreds of children.”

—

OBAMA: “So even though I possess the authority to order military strikes, I believed it was right in the absence of a direct or imminent threat to our security to take this debate to Congress.”

THE FACTS: Obama’s statement that he has the authority to launch military action is par for the course for presidents, and historically disputed by Congress. The issue never gets settled.

The Constitution delineates power between the president, who serves as commander in chief of the armed forces, and Congress, which has the ability to declare war. Over time, however, questions arose over where the president’s authority ends and where Congress’ begins.

The 1973 War Powers Resolution sought to end the debate, but it has only fueled arguments between Republican and Democratic administrations alike and those who consider themselves constitutional purists.

The law gives the president the power to act without congressional approval in cases of national emergency for up to 60 days. In such a case, the president must consult with Congress. And if the deadline passes without congressional authorization, the president has 30 additional days to remove troops.

But what constitutes a national emergency and what consultation means remain subjects of continued disputes.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/10/fact-check-obamas-syria-case-still-lacking/

Wow: Senior Senate aide says Obama was short of 50 votes for Syria strike

How bad has it gotten for The One? Quote: “In their private moments, Mr. Obama’s allies said even the argument that his presidency would for all intents and purposes be over did not sway some unsympathetic Democrats, frustrated over how few victories there have been to hang on to in Mr. Obama’s fifth year in office.”

The House was always going to be a heavy lift, and cracking 60 in the Senate wouldn’t have been easy given the depth of public opposition, but a bare majority in a chamber controlled by O’s own party? That’s a fait accompli.

Isn’t it?

On the Democratic side, the impact [of the Russian proposal] is less clear. Aides suggest it could make some Dems marginally more inclined to support strikes, on the theory that a more credible threat of force later could make a diplomatic solution more likely. “With news that the White House is open to working with the UN, I think this is in furtherance of passing whatever the final resolution is,” one Dem leadership aide tells me.

It’s my understanding that senior Democrats and White House advisers have not yet begun to make such a case internally to wavering lawmakers, though it seems possible you may hear it being made before long.

The overall impact of all this, as best as I can determine, is that it’s allowed Dems to, in effect, stop the internal bleeding of support in Congress for Obama’s strikes.

A senior Senate aide tells me that support for the authorization of strikeshad not yet reached 50 Senators, even privately, meaning its passage is in doubt, even in the Senate. “This allows for a pause in the decision-making process,” the aide says.

How could there not be 51 votes in a chamber with 55 Democrats? WaPo breaks it down. Some are hardcore liberals and therefore likely to vote no on principle; some are up for reelection next year in red states, knowing that Republicans are trending hard against intervention; some are retiring and thus have nothing to lose by disappointing The One; and some are thinking about running for president and worried that voting yes might be a liability in the primaries in 2016. Or maybe they were all simply turned off by the White House’s classified briefings on Syria? Anecdotally, per ABC, those seem to be generating a lot more nays than yays in the House:

After listening to a classified briefing from five senior administration officials this evening, two more lawmakers came out in opposition to strikes against Syria, one went from undecided to leaning against, while another dozen hardened their positions from “lean against” to opposed…

Perhaps more troubling for President Obama are the tougher positions of many lawmakers who, until the briefing, had been only leaning against the resolution.

Tonight, Reps. Marsha Blackburn, Charles Boustany, Scott DesJarlais, Tom Graves, Brett Guthrie, Gregg Harper, Sam Johnson, Frank LoBiondo, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Kenny Marchant, Alan Nunnelee and Steve Womack all closed the door on supporting authorization for military force.

I’m honestly curious now to see what O’s going to say tonight at this big White House “red line” pep rally. Usually there are few things more predictable than a presidential speech, but Putin keeps tossing curveballs at him. Up until an hour ago, it was a cinch that Obama would endorse the Russian weapons proposal and call for a “pause” in Congress or whatever while things play out diplomatically. That would get him off the hook from an historic humiliation in both the House and Senate while letting him boast that his muscle-flexing finally forced Assad to cough up his WMD. Now, with Putin insisting that O has to renounce muscle-flexing as a condition of the deal, what happens? Obama can’t say “to hell with Russia” and demand that Congress vote immediately; he’ll still lose badly and then he’ll have no diplomatic option with which to kinda sorta save face. I think he’ll end up endorsing the Russian plan but emphasizing that under no circumstances will the U.S. promise not to attack if Assad drags his feet. That’s the only way to thread the needle on “credibility,” simultaneously ducking a congressional vote that would destroy it while defying Putin’s demands.

Exit question: What happens if Putin then turns around and says, “Okay, if you won’t renounce force, the deal’s off”? What’s Obama’s move then?

Update: And there you have it.

#Breaking: Obama wants to delay a vote on authorizing force in Syria until a diplomatic solution has a chance to play out.

— POLITICO (@politico) September 10, 2013

BREAKING: UN Council meeting on Syria postponed: envoys

— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) September 10, 2013

His “strategy” now is simply to buy time. If things work out for him at the UN, great. Then he can walk away from this “red line” crap. If they don’t work out and Russia ends up obstructing, that’s okay too. Watching Putin try to thwart the U.S. at every turn will only help build support in Congress for striking a blow at his Syrian client. And if, while we’re waiting for the UN to decide, Assad does something nutty by using gas again, that’s A-OK by Obama too. He’ll attack straightaway and can forget about congressional logistics.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/10/wow-senior-senate-aide-says-obama-was-short-of-50-votes-for-syria-strike/

Sequestration nation: DoD doles out $7 billion in wind-energy contracts

Remember, earlier this year, when the Obama administration was transforming each and every sequestration budget cut into some nightmarishly dire prediction about how each and every major department wouldn’t be able to perform the full extent of their absolutely and irrevocably essential duties? It would seem that, even as there are Defense Department employees being furloughed and Secretary Hagel warns of more layoffs and our military slims down on equipment, training programs, and etcetera, the Pentagon evidently continues to prioritize the forceful implementation of so-called “green” and “renewable” sources into their energy repertoire. Via Reuters:

The U.S. Army has picked 17 companies that will be eligible to receive orders for wind energy under an umbrella contract valued at up to $7 billion, the Pentagon said on Monday.

The companies include many large energy producers including Dominion Energy, a unit of Dominion Resources Inc ; the U.S. unit of Spain’s Acciona SA ; Duke Energy Corp ; the U.S. unit of France’s EDF Energies Nouvelles; and the U.S. unit of Spain’s Iberdrola SA.

All the companies were awarded potential “indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity” contracts that have a cumulative value of up to $7 billion, the Pentagon said in its daily digest of major contracts.

Why the Obama administration insists upon using the military as a sponsor of what they, rather than the free market, have arbitrarily and falsely deemed to be practical and cost-effective sources of energy, it pains me to think on — but the point is that the U.S. military is currently choosing to spend big money on energy sources that do not offer them the biggest bang for their buck.

Even better, the Pentagon dished out a similarly sized set of contracts for solar energy companies last month; and this is all on top the Navy’s push to outfit a number of cruisers, destroyers, and fighter jets with biofuel-blended gas. While proponents of using the military as a renewable-energy guinea pig often point to the completely bogus argument that these initiatives will enhance the military’s energy security, the fact is that this is yet another way for the Obama administration to brag about their green-energy commitments and prop up the technologies on which they’ve already spent so much taxpayer money in the form of subsidies and handouts, all for political and ideological purposes — and in the long run, it’s a disservice to actual opportunities for renewable energy.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/10/sequestration-nation-dod-doles-out-7-billion-in-wind-energy-contracts/

Krauthammer: ‘One of the most odd presidential speeches ever delivered’

Following President Barack Obama’s Tuesday night address to the nation, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer reacted by calling the president’s effort to get support for his Syria strategy “one of the most odd presidential speeches ever delivered.”

Krauthammer decried Obama’s message for giving Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proposal so much weight.

“That’s what makes this one of the most odd presidential speeches ever delivered,” Krauthammer said. “Here is a president who urgently addresses the nation on all channels to call for a pause in assuming that the nation does not want to do in the first place. This is, you know, almost unbelievable. And the fact that he puts so much weight on the Russian proposal, which is a farce.”

The Russians have said what they’re trying to do is to get a guarantee that America will never strike Syria, meaning Russia wants the installation and the maintenance of the Assad regime, which Obama said had to go, to be a principal of any settlement, which will undo any attempt on the part of the West to ultimately dislodge the man who unleashed the weapons,” he continued.

Watch:

Krauthammer went on to say that Obama perhaps made this gesture to buy time as the plan to use force against Syria looks to be dead on arrival in the U.S. Congress.

“So, I don’t see that there is a serious proposal,” Krauthammer added. “I think Obama sees this as a way to negotiate, to pause, to draw it out. And after a couple of weeks, inspections, negotiation, as if there will not be a vote in Congress, there will not be a strike and we will not have the removal of weapons out of Syria.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/11/krauthammer-one-of-the-most-odd-presidential-speeches-ever-delivered/#ixzz2ebShzeCG

Obama speech: As confused as his policy.

At least it was short. That, however, was its only virtue, but even that wasn’t enough to raise questions about why Barack Obama bothered to give such a momentous speech to say … nothing at all new, and nothing at all about what he wanted from the American people.

Charles Krauthammer dubbed this the “oddest presidential speech ever,” and he has a point. Presidential addresses from the White House during prime time usually have a clear purpose, or what I called on Twitter last night a “Big Ask.” This particular bully pulpit isn’t used for fireside chats or for campaign speeches, but to focus American attention on a particular and inexorable course of action, and to rally Americans behind the Commander in Chief for that action.

Yesterday, though, Obama sounded contradictory and confused.  He attempted to rouse moral outrage over the use of chemical weapons against scores or hundreds children in Damascus on August 21st, which is an easy case to make — but thousands of children have been killed in the Syrian civil war in all sorts of ways, by all sides. Obama argued that Bashar al-Assad had to be deterred from using chemical weapons in the future, but left out any call for regime change, which is still the official strategic goal of the Obama administration. To Americans reluctant to engage in another war, Obama cajoled us to action, claiming that only the United States had the power to bring Assad to heel.

And then almost in the same breath, Obama then acknowledged that a diplomatic solution had arisen, despite two weeks of beating the drums for war. Just after arguing that only the US military could solve the problem, Obama said that he was turning to Russia for a potential solution. Not only that, but he also announced that he had asked Congress to hold off on a vote to authorize military action until the Russia and UN track played itself out.  This change was necessitated by the fumbling of his Secretary of State, even though Obama himself had just called the UN “hocus pocus.”

So what was Obama asking of the American people? Nothing. What new and convincing information did Obama bring to the American people?  None.  What new argument did Obama make to shift the strong momentum against military action? He had none.  There was nothing new in this speech from Obama that hadn’t been argued at length in his six broadcast-network interviews the day before, or that his White House and State Department hadn’t offered in the previous week before the speech.

And most oddly, despite having the attention of the nation on the eve of 9/11, Obama never bothered to mention either the devastating terrorist attacks from twelve years ago or the sacking of the Benghazi consulate on the previous anniversary, which took place on Obama’s watch.  The closest that Obama came to either was a mention of al-Qaeda which argued that it would benefit most if we didn’t attack Assad, who’s currently fighting their affiliates in Syria, and an argument that the majority of Assad’s opponents are peaceful moderates:

It’s true that some of Assad’s opponents are extremists. But al Qaida will only draw strength in a more chaotic Syria if people there see the world doing nothing to prevent innocent civilians from being gassed to death.

The majority of the Syrian people, and the Syrian opposition we work with, just want to live in peace, with dignity and freedom. And the day after any military action, we would redouble our efforts to achieve a political solution that strengthens those who reject the forces of tyranny and extremism.

Did Obama offer any evidence of these assertions?  Not at all, although plenty of evidence exists to cast serious doubt on them.

The speech may have been short, but it far outstripped its substance and its symbolic value. Before a President gets up to wave the bloody shirt, is it too much to ask that he (a) knows what the hell he wants to do, (b) actually has decided on military action as a last resort instead of a first resort, and (c) and knows who we’re fighting against — and for?

Update: Fixed video, and the second (b) was supposed to be (c).

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/11/obama-speech-as-confused-as-his-policy/

Smack! Remember Benghazi? Fred Thompson has key question for John Kerry

StateDept rep:Kerry has broad interests, can "focus on many things at same time". So why's only thing he's not interested in Benghazi? #tcot

— 
Fred Thompson (@fredthompson) September 06, 2013

Boom. Enough said.

Twitter users replied to former Senator Fred Thompson by offering some snarky excuses for Secretary of State Kerry:

Like kite surfing, for example “@fredthompson: StateDept rep:Kerry has broad interests, can "focus on many things at same time".— 
Milkshakes Anytime (@MomMilkshake) September 07, 2013

@fredthompson But Kerry's yatch and wife's money take up a lot of his time.— 
mose leonard (@moseleonard) September 06, 2013

Yep. Kerry sure does have a laser-like focus on yachting!

But as the one year anniversary of the attack in Benghazi looms, this Twitter user brings it all home:

@fredthompson @SteveSteveolson The overlooking of Benghazi is a national disgrace.— 
Shock and Aw Shucks (@JackDennisTN) September 08, 2013

Amen.

http://twitchy.com/2013/09/09/smack-remember-benghazi-fred-thompson-has-key-question-for-john-kerry/