The Syria Resolution

[Eraserhead]

Probably passes in the Senate fairly easily (although I'm not sure if they'll quite get to 60 yet).

I think both the Democratic and the GOP leadership will pull out all the of stops in an effort to get it through the House but it's tough to imagine them pulling it off. The alliance between the Obama haters/anti-war lefties will be a tough one to break in this case.

[Eraserhead]

I haven't watched them yet but I hear the hearings with Kerry and Hagel were confusing and overall pretty disastrous.

[Eraserhead]

I haven't watched them yet but I hear the hearings with Kerry and Hagel were confusing and overall pretty disastrous.

Kerry: Let me be as clear as I know how, we will absolutely not send in ground troops  ... unless for some reason we need to.

Classic Kerry!

[Eraserhead]

They pretty clearly don't know whether or not Assad himself ordered the weapons to be used.

[Eraserhead]

Considering the way Assad normally deals with dissent if it was a rouge officer who ordered it then said rogue officer would be gunned to pieces within hours. Has that happened yet?

Would we necessarily know if it had?

[Eraserhead]

Yeah, it sounds like it's doomed in the House. You might have a majority of Democrats voting against it.

[Eraserhead]

There's little doubt that this'll pass the Senate. I think it will even get above 60 votes, but I'm not seeing it get to 70.

Unless things change fast and the President is extremely convincing in his speech to the nation, this will easily fail in the House. Members of Congress are getting calls nearly unanimously opposed to strikes. You can't underestimate the effect of that. I think I said a few days ago that at that time it would have been no more than 180 in support. That number may have actually dropped to 160-170. A strong majority of Republicans are not going to support this. If even a simple majority of Democrats oppose it as well (as may very well happen). this resolution will be defeated decisively in the House. Party leadership simply does not have enough control over votes on issues of war. This is an issue where conscience has supremacy over party.

I doubt they'll get to 60 in the Senate unless Obama's speech is a game changer. There are too many Democrats coming out against it.