And for the life of me, I wonder what briefing you attended that suggested otherwise.
A friend of mine has convinced me that what makes Twitter a useful tool is the creation of short, biting hashtags which over time can hang a theme around someone’s neck, and sting every time it’s used. Time will tell, but I’m beginning to like #CottonmouthRepublican much better than RINO, especially since I think it’s we conservatives who are the true RINO’s in this Republican Party.
So, how do we know one of these #Cottonmouth guys when we see them? Well, the Cottonmouth poster boy shouldn’t be hard to imagine.
But not to trivialize a serious subject, there is an intellectual argument that is even more overpowering to define what a #Cottonmouth really is. We can find it wherever we find Republicans agreeing with one of Obama’s statist premises… even as they come out against it in some sort of inoffensive, nit-picking-around-the-edges way.
For instance, have you seen any member of the GOP stride before a microphone and challenge Obama’s right to target American citizens, this “right” based on a “legal finding” by his Attorney General Holder that he can suspend or circumvent the Constitution to declare any citizen a threat to national security and thereby order him killed, if special circumstances warrant?
Trust me, the President has no such right, nor can the Attorney General insinuate one for him. The Constitution forbids it. Period. What the president has done is grab a new power, not clarify a old right. So, Dictatorship +1, Constitutional restraint, -1. And so it goes.
But since Obama has done exactly that, the short answer to my question above is No. No Republican I know has called out the President for acting illegally.
Or has the thought even crossed their minds?
Obama killed Anwar al-Alwaki and another American-born terrorist, and because these guys were certified Al Qaeda, #Cottonmouths like M’Cain and a long list of purported conservatives have declared this policy to be a good thing as long as it’s strictly limited. In other words, it’s OK because of its proven outcome….Except…
…one other drone death, an innocent 16-year old kid, was none-of-the-above in the rules established in the Presidential finding. He was just there visiting his dad.
So, where was the GOP? Have we seen any indictments? How about public outrage? (It was over a year ago.) How about a mea culpa (a “my bad”) from Obama or Holder? By their silence the GOP has become complicit in anything and everything that might happen under this general authority in coming months.
So, with one innocent dead kid already, just how rigid (or flexible) are these “kill finding” rules anyway? Can Obama strike out “Yemen” and insert “Ohio?” How about four ninjas instead of a drone? Can he strike out “engaged in foreign operations” and insert ‘”domestic terrorism”, then start downgrading that to “domestic suspect”? Recent IRS strikes against Republican donors and tea parties seem to indicate the true meanings of “threat” and “enemy” are very flexible in the president’s thinking.
But the intellectually vacant #Cottonmouths, like John M’Cain (and his dog Spot), can never seem to see that far down the road. This is probably because their first knee-jerk response is to accommodate the king’s ruling premise, namely that such an authority exists or should exist.
Which brings us to Syria, where #Cottonmouths have been finessed by Obama beyond belief. It seems the hawkish-by-reputation Republicans, under the aegis of John McCain (and his dog Spot) have declared Obama’s policy in Syria all wrong, but get this, because Obama is moving too slow in helping the rebel resistance throw down the Assad regime. M’Cain wants to open the arms floodgates, and if you follow the news, you know that he’s in Turkish protected Syrian territory today talking with “rebel freedom fighters” about just such a prospect.
So in effect, Obama has #Cottonmouth Republicans getting him all the guns he wants for the Syrian “rebels” and “freedom fighters” (read Muslim Brotherhood)…guns some say he’s been smuggling there from Libya for over a year now. Some even say this smuggling operation serves as the back-story for the Benghazi consulate attacks, and as the true basis for the coverup. (With M’Cain’s intervention the cover-up is now complete.)
Let’s back up.
Did any #Cottonmouth ever once pause to reflect that it has been GOP and national policy since Gerald Ford that there are no good guys in the Middle East? And that is why we always kept hands off in these nasty wars?
It was Obama who changed that, Sen M’Cain, and I see nowhere that the Republican Party have signed onto to his new policy. M’Cain just came out and claimed it as his own, and the media has massaged that, once again to stroke a vanity that will give Obama and the White House Brotherhood-Symps what they have always wanted; to be able to lay at the GOP’s feet the coming holocaust if and when the Muslim Brotherhood proves in Syria to be just as “bad a guy” there as they’ve proved in Egypt, and just as bad a guy as Ford-Carter-Reagan-Bush-even Clinton knew them to be for thirty years.
M’Cain has highjacked GOP foreign policy by simply being the most malignant fist-pounder in the room. That’s why he’s our #Coppermouth poster boy.
But to damn McCain (and his dog, Spot) with faint praise, I have to admit here that no libel ever accused either of being able to think as deeply as Obama has, for they are clearly his unwitting lapdogs here. Obama has a plan and has managed to get the witless #Cottonmouths in the GOP to carry it out for him, all because M’Cain wants to appear tough and relevant.
GOP policy really is that shallow, folks.
A Refresher Course
When Assad’s father, Hafez, massacred an entire city, Hama, in 1982, during a much larger uprising then, Reagan and America did nothing but shake its head. Why? Because they knew only too well who the opposition to Hafez al-Assad was then. The Muslim Brotherhood. And you’ll note the American and world media, the same lefties then as today, also said little. Even they knew the Muslim Brotherhood, and tacitly agreed not to press against American policy, even though it was Ronald Reagan managing it.
Universal Rule: Eastern potentates are not inclined to go around killing their citizens wllly-nilly. Like every other tyrant, they need their commerce, taxes and compliance, so the government can get it’s cut of the pie on time and in a regular fashion. I can personally attest that Christians fared much better under Saddam Hussein than they ever could have under the new democratic regime in Iraq, (I’m sure George W Bush knows this as well.) Saddam only saw them as producers, but now all are refugees. Civil strife messes up all the predictability to life. Tyrants may go off on a war against a neighbor, but they work hard to avoid one at home. Their secret police are famous for keeping things quiet.
But those same tyrants are absolutely merciless to their enemies who conspire against them. Hafez al-Assad killed between 10,000-40,o00 in Hama (accounts vary), mostly civilians, but civilians who were 100% sympathetic to the Brotherhood, and were about 85% related to them by blood or clan. (Think mafia here; who kill every member of a family if they can find them.) Today, Hafez’s kid Bashar hasn’t even come close to matching papa’s taste for artistic barbarism. (Hafez used bodies as fill to pave a road.) The death tolls from the 1980s and this current civil war don’t even compare.
Bashar al-Assad didn’t start this civil war, but he’s damned sure not about to put up with this sort of revolt from an historic enemy. And since this civil war was egged on by Obama’s nurtured relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood and their fronts in the United States, his back is even more steeled.
So, if you feel just a little sympathy for this Syrian tyrant tugging at your belly, simply because of the equally evil bad-guys allied against him, don’t feel guilty. It’s perfectly natural. This is a fight we have no business having a dog in, Sen M’Cain…or any Republican who may be listening. But people of common sense and fair play will find you on the other side.
This is madness. This is a lose-lose for the entire GOP, not just its #Cottonmouth wing.
In truth, American policy hasn’t really changed toward Syria. What has changed is American policy toward the other bad guys, the Muslim Brotherhood and quite frankly, all non-Al Qaeda forms of Islamist tyranny. Obama now shares a revolving door in the White House with the MB, and has publicly declared them to be pretty swell guys (compared to Al Qaeda), just a little misunderstood maybe, and certainly not the Jew-baiting Nazis of another era, although they’re having a fun time with Christians in Egypt right now.
State-sponsored tyranny-Si!, Terrorism- No!,
Now that the government of Turkey has come under Brotherhood sway, they are sharpening the knives for chopping off a piece of Syria for themselves and more of less exercising a kind of hegemony in the region.
Envision a Brotherhood line running from Istanbul through Damascus to Cairo to Tripoli, except for that only little notch in the road called Israel that still controls the third most religious site in all Islam, Jerusalem.
And guess who’s making this Hands-Across-the Levant possible? Why John M’Cain and his squad of #Cottonmouth Republicans, of course. Not Obama’s fault, if it comes to that.
The Obama definition of “peace ” in the Middle East is when all the opponents of MH are dead or vanquished. The only remaining obstacles are Syria and Israel, with some after-thought for the fledgling democracy in Iraq, which can be dealt with in due anytime.
Sen M’Cain, everyone in America, even Jimmy Carter, understood that in the revolts and wars in the Middle East there have never been any good guys.
So on what basis have you decided to side with one of the bad guys, or declare those bad guys good?
