Roanoke Man is back. Or maybe it was just his version of the Stockholm Syndrome, but our dear president insists he didn’t build the red line ultimatum. World government did. He’d be happier if he couldn’t find Syria on the map. Or be like Sen. Ed Markey and simply vote “present” on whether we should target Damascus. And heaven forbid that he meant he’d be “present at the creation” of something meaningful (hat tip: Dean Acheson) or, as is more likely, “present at the destruction” of who knows what (hat tip: Enemy Central). The important thing is that he didn’t say what he said last August. Let’s go to the NSA videotape.
“That’s a red line for us,” he said back then, imperially, we assume, this on top of these lapidary words: “a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.” My, my, we’re dealing with a math whiz. But that’s neither here nor there. It never happened is all you know, and all you need to know. Besides, those words were of no moment. He was speaking extemporaneously, not reading from a teleprompter, the holy grail of the Obama presidency.
Welcome to life in Obama’s Red Line District. Who would venture there? Who wouldn’t! We have his oft-humiliated secretary of status, J.F. Kerry, a believer in chemical weapons at least when it comes to keeping his visage younger looking than it was even during the Botox years of his presidential run. How many international conventions has he violated to end up so dashingly handsome and smooth-faced? He does our nation proud. President Putin had better pick on someone else.
Knowing Put-Put, it probably will be that well-known Justice of the Peace, the Hon. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who last weekend officiated at the Kennedy Center nuptials of two gentlemen, one of whom is named John Roberts. Yes, the very name of the Chief Justice of the United States. We assume it wasn’t he, given that we know him to be married to a wife, a condition that today would nix his confirmation chances, but luckily for the reactionary remnant his nomination came up under an earlier president. To be sure, given his Obamacare surprise, who’s to say he won’t be open to polyamorous arrangements in the not too distance future. In this case, we trust Justice Ginsburg will recuse herself, regardless of which constitution and legal code she cites as the source of her authority.
Then there’s our friend Senator McCain, ever the adventurer and risk taker, using the Syria debate to get into a good game of video poker. Naturally, he bombed at that too, tweeting “worst of all I lost.” In the Red Line District one can always survive to bomb another day. Secretary Kerry, for instance, escalated matters by intervening in a climate conference in the Marshall Islands to announce that evidence of climate change is “irrefutable,” “alarming,” and replete with “impacts.” Here too, he provided no evidence, not even soil samples, which is odd, unless climate change has deprived those islands of sand.
In Hollywood, there’s widespread talk that the louchest of its acting greats, Mr. Jack Nicholson, is retiring, owing to “memory issues.” So much for getting high and spending all of one’s waking hours at L.A. Laker games. Presumably, he’ll be unavailable to help make the case for the Affordable Care Act. The great David Frost has died at sea, on a fabled cruise ship. He helped cover President Nixon’s legal bills, and eventually ended up at Al Jazeera, as all Al Gore fans are fully aware. We know who played Mr. Frost in a movie (Michael Sheen), but who will attempt to capture Mr. Gore on screen, now that Mr. Nicholson is out of the picture? Some questions defy easy answers.
It’s been said George Hamilton has the tan that would allow him to play House Speaker John Boehner in a film. But would he capture the speaker in all his comity and complexity? We were frankly stunned at how quickly and selflessly the Republican leader agreed to serve as our president’s useful idiot in rounding up support for the latter’s rescue mission of himself. After years of abuse at Mr. Obama’s hands, Sir John mouthed his lines like a model Stockholm Syndrome man. “I appreciate the president reaching out to me and my colleagues in the Congress over the last couple of weeks,” Luca Brasi professed. “I also appreciate the president asking the Congress to support him in this action.” Hope he appreciates that we’ve got to name him our latest EOW. Our capacity to execute this mission is not time sensitive, however. The decision could come today, or next week, or one month from now.
Photo: UPI
