“A Presidency Is Not On The Line”: The Vote On Syria Is Important, But It Will Not Dictate The Fate Obama’s His Presidency
The Hill published an item this morning that helps capture much of the Beltway thinking about Congress’ upcoming votes on military intervention in Syria. “The fate of President Obama’s second term hangs on his Tuesday speech to the nation about Syria,” the piece argues. “If Congress votes against a military attack on President Bashar Assad’s regime, Obama’s credibility may be shot, perhaps for the rest of his tenure.”
This is certainly the conventional wisdom, eagerly touted by Republicans. If Congress rejects the White House’s call for action, Obama’s defeat will be so catastrophic, he might as well resign.
Obviously, the House and Senate votes are very important; it’d be foolish to argue otherwise. The world is watching, and if the president’s call for authorization is rejected by Congress, it will carry significant consequences — for Syria, for U.S. foreign policy, and for the administration.
But let’s not go too overboard.
Yes, Obama is prepared to use force in response to Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons, and lawmakers seem prepared to turn down the president’s request. But let’s not lose sight of the larger dynamic here: Obama asks Congress for a lot of things, and lawmakers routinely say no. Kevin Drum’s take rings true:
[W]hy would rejecting Obama’s request “incapacitate the president for three long years”? I’m not asking this in the usual rhetorical way, where I pretend not to know even though I really do. I’m really asking. Presidents suffer defeats all the time. Obama lost on cap-and-trade. He’s lost on plenty of judicial and executive branch nominations. He couldn’t get agreement for a grand bargain. He lost on gun control. What’s more, Republicans have been opposing him on virtually everything from the day he took office. In what concrete way would a defeat on Syria change this dynamic in even the slightest way?
Legislation that Congress was unlikely to pass will face equally long odds regardless of the outcome of the Syria debate. Likewise, it’s hard to imagine any lawmakers looking at a bill that might yet pass and saying, “Well, I was prepared to vote for this, but since the authorization to use force in Syria didn’t work out, forget it.”
Obama couldn’t get Congress to focus on job creation. Or gun violence. Or really much of anything at all. A loss on a Syria resolution may have some qualitative differences — it’s foreign policy, not domestic — but Clinton lost House votes on Bosnia and Kosovo, and his presidency didn’t magically collapse on the spot.
If Obama comes up short on Syria, it’d really just be a reminder that congressional Republicans will simply reject everything the president wants out of hand, even when they agree with him — which is something we already knew.
Brian Beutler is thinking along the same lines.
When President Obama decided to seek authorization to bomb Syria, he didn’t just throw the fate of his plans into the hands of 535 unpredictable members of Congress. He also made himself vulnerable to overblown suggestions that his entire second term is on the line.
Political reporters have a weakness for narratives, and the narrative of a weakened president is irresistible. Moreover, members of Congress will feed that narrative. Even Democrats. If you’re Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid, a great way to pad your vote count is to plead to your caucus that if the resolution fails, Obama will become a lame duck a year earlier than he ought to.
This pitch is both morally and factually incorrect.
Lawmakers who were prepared to vote for immigration reform won’t change their minds over Syria. The same is true of lawmakers who want to hold the debt ceiling hostage, change the sequestration policy, or really do much anything. The vote on Syria is important, but it will not dictate the fate of Obama’s presidency.
Just to be clear, the outcome of this foreign policy fight matters. In the short term, it will carry life-and-death consequences in Syria, and in the medium term, it will likely affect the nation’s diplomatic and national security efforts (though I’ve long argued that Republican radicalism has put the U.S. in a post-treaty phase anyway).
But the notion that Congress can effectively end Obama’s presidency with one vote on a resolution on force in Syria appears to be an overstatement. Some Republicans may want to use it as an excuse to reject an agenda they disapprove of anyway, and some in the media may see a pretense to write the president’s political obituary, but both are a little over the top.
By: Steve Benen, The Madow Blog, September 9, 2013
“Working Together To Screw People Over”: The Republican Team Effort On Obamacare Obstruction
When it comes to the Affordable Care Act, you have to give Republicans credit for sheer sticktoitiveness. They tried to defeat the law, but it passed. They tried to get the Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional, but that didn’t work. So now, as the open-enrollment period for the exchanges approaches on October 1, they’re thinking creatively to find new ways to sabotage the law. Sure, at this point that means screwing over people who need insurance, but sometimes there’s unavoidable collateral damage when you’re fighting a war.
Their latest target is the Obamacare “navigators.” Because not just the law but the insurance market itself can be pretty complicated, the ACA included money to train and support people whose job it would be to help people get through this new system, answering consumers’ questions and guiding them through the process. Grants have been given to hospitals, community groups, charities like the United Way, churches, and the like in the 34 states that are relying on the federal government to operate their exchanges in whole or in part. You can see the problem: If there are folks out there helping people get health coverage, that will mean that people will get health coverage. And that won’t do.
So Republicans are implementing a joint federal-state subversion campaign. On the federal level, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have sent threatening letters to recipients of the navigator grants, demanding copious documentation on everything they’ve done having anything to do with the program (Jonathan Cohn explains here). Not because there’s been any suggestion of fraud or incompetence—don’t forget, at this point all the navigators have been doing is getting ready for open enrollment when they’ll have to start helping people—but on the apparent theory that if you can harass them enough, it’ll keep them from doing their jobs.
Meanwhile, on the state level, Republicans are finding whatever ways they can to get in the navigators’ way. Just get a load of this despicable toad: http://youtu.be/0fm-2J4F4v4
That’s Georgia Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens, a former chemical company salesman and Republican state legislator, who I guess ran for insurance commissioner because he cares so much about people. He explains how when it comes to Obamacare, he’s doing “everything in our power to be an obstructionist.” He then explains, to the laughs and cheers of this Republican crowd, how a new law requires the navigators to get licensed by his department, with the clear implication that they’ll make it as difficult as possible.
In fact, 16 Republican-controlled states have passed laws imposing requirements on the navigators over and above what the federal government is already requiring. And guess who’s writing these laws? Lobbyists for insurance agents and brokers, who worry they’ll lose business if people can just call up a toll-free number and have somebody explain to them how to get insurance on their state’s exchange.
Remember, what they’re trying to do here is make it as hard as possible for people to get insurance. It’s as simple as that. The more people they can keep from getting insurance, in this case by keeping them from getting the information they need to buy insurance on the exchanges, the easier it will be for them to argue that the Affordable Care Act is a failure. And what about the human suffering that will cause if they’re successful? The diseases that go undiagnosed because people avoid going to the doctor, the uninsured families bankrupted when struck with an accident or illness? Too bad. Because screw you, Obama.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, September 4, 2013
“Priority Deficit Disorder”: When Congressional Republicans’ Homework And Playtime Are At Odds
Back in March, just two months into the new Congress, Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) conceded that he had a small problem. He’d been assigned the task of working on loan guarantees for clean-energy companies, and was supposed to write legislation. But that never happened — Kelly got distracted.
His spokesperson said at the time, “It was a priority, and it remains an issue of interest. But Mike’s efforts shifted when he chose to focus more on holding the administration accountable with regards to Fast and Furious. And then when the Benghazi tragedy occurred, that took the cake.”
In other words, there was real work to do, but the Pennsylvania Republican couldn’t get to it because he decided made-up political “scandals” were a better use of his time.
Six months later, those attitudes continue to dominate the House GOP’s thinking.
Republicans on Capitol Hill are acknowledging that the fall’s looming fiscal fights could peel attention away from their investigation into the IRS’s singling out of conservative groups. […]
But Republicans have also made the IRS investigation a key part of their recent political message, at a time when the agency is trying to implement the Democratic healthcare law that conservatives are itching to defund. The controversy has also helped revive a Tea Party movement that had been flagging in recent months.
With all that in mind, GOP aides stress that the congressional investigation into the IRS will be moving full speed ahead, even as a potential debt default takes up much of the oxygen in the halls of Congress.
This will, by the way, include even more hearings into the discredited controversy.
John Feehery, a GOP strategist, told The Hill that Republicans “have to make the connection” between the non-existent IRS story and the Affordable Care Act “because it’s so hot right now.”
Oh for crying out loud.
Look, the House of Representatives is in session only nine days this month. Nine. Congress just took a four-week break, but the Republican-led lower chamber apparently wants to ease back into their work schedule.
On the to-do list? A budget crisis, a debt-ceiling crisis, a farm bill, immigration reform, appropriations bills, and fixing the Voting Rights Act. It’s simply unrealistic to think the dysfunctional House will complete all of these tasks, or even most of them, anytime soon, though a couple of these are non-optional.
But despite all of this work that remains undone, much of which should have been completed before the August recess, House GOP leaders are still eager to invest time and energy in a “scandal” that no longer makes any sense. Why? Apparently because it’s “so hot right now.”
It reminds me a lot of a child who prioritizes playtime over homework. Sure, the homework is important, but it’s not nearly as fun or satisfying as playing — so the child decides some of the homework just won’t get done.
Republicans remain a post-policy party. They have real work to do, which they will neglect because their shiny plaything has a firm grip on their limited attention span.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 3, 2013
“A Thuggish Abuse Of Power”: Republicans’ Devious Plan To Slow Down Obamacare Enrollment
Republican lawmakers who had criticized the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for improperly targeting conservative nonprofits for additional scrutiny kicked off an investigation last week into community-based groups who received Navigator grants to help uninsured people enroll in the exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act, demanding that the organizations answer detailed questions and produce thousands of reams of documents.
Fifteen Republican members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, including Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), are requesting detailed responses and thousands of pages of documents from approximately 60 percent of Navigator-recipients across the country by Sep. 13.
The tactic is reminiscent of the kind of practices Republicans had condemned over the summer, after news broke that the IRS subjected certain groups applying for 501 C4 nonprofit tax status to long, intrusive, questionnaires about their filings. Upton personally called such tactics a “thuggish abuse of power” and “simply un-American.”
But according to the GOP-backed letter, groups scrambling to begin enrolling individuals in coverage on Oct. 1, will have just two weeks to provide detailed written descriptions of their employees and activities, interactions with the Department of Health and Human Services, and “all documentation and communication related to your grant.”
Last month, the Obama administration distributed $67 million in federal grants to more than 100 hospitals, universities, Indian tribes, patient advocacy groups and local food banks “to help people sign up for coverage in new online health insurance marketplaces.”
The effort is just the latest attempt by Republicans to undermine enrollment in the Affordable Care Act. Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee have previously sent letters seeking information to entities tasked with educating the public about the law, opened investigations into public relations companies that had been contracted to promote the law on popular television shows, and warned the National Football League (NFL) and National Basketball Association (NBA) against encouraging enrollment in the law.
An HHS spokesperson strongly condemned the committee’s request to Politico, noting, “This is a blatant and shameful attempt to intimidate groups who will be working to inform Americans about their new health insurance options and help them enroll in coverage, just like Medicare counselors have been doing for years.”
By: Igor Volsky, Think Progress, September 3, 2013
“We Agree With The Same Red Line, Actually”: Let’s Not Pretend It Was A Position Most Republicans Didn’t Approve Of
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) issued a statement this afternoon that left his position on Syria unclear, though he complained that President Obama “has some work to do to recover from his grave missteps in Syria.”
Curiously, the Wisconsin Republican didn’t say what “grave missteps” he disapproves of. When GOP lawmakers generally make this complaint, they’re referring to Obama last year declaring Syria’s use of chemical weapons a “red line” that the Assad government must not cross.
But Ryan really isn’t in a position to make this complaint. As CNBC’s Eamon Javers noted today, this was the exchange from last year’s vice presidential candidates’ debate:
RADDATZ: What happens if Assad does not fall? Congressman Ryan, what happens to the region? What happens if he hangs on? What happens if he does?
RYAN: Then Iran keeps their greatest ally in the region. He’s a sponsor of terrorism. He’ll probably continue slaughtering his people. We and the world community will lose our credibility on this….
RADDATZ: So what would Romney-Ryan do about that credibility?
RYAN: Well, we agree with the same red line, actually, they do on chemical weapons, but not putting American troops in, other than to secure those chemical weapons. They’re right about that.
I mention this in part because, just over the last week or so, it seems the conventional wisdom has coalesced around the belief that Obama was irresponsible last year by making his “red line” remarks, which may have helped lock his administration into a course of action. Whether or not the president’s stated position was the right call is certainly a topic worthy of debate.
But let’s not pretend it was a position Republicans broadly disapproved of last year, or really at any time up until two weeks ago. When Paul Ryan declared that his party “agrees with the same line,” it’s not like there was a great hullabaloo at the time about the congressman’s break with GOP orthodoxy.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 13, 2013
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