The scholar relied on by Kerry and McCain to make the case for attacking Syria has bee fired for lying about having a Ph.D.

Politico reports, noting an unbelievably small discrepancy:

[Elizabeth] O’Bagy told POLITICO’s Kate Brannen in an interview Monday that she had submitted and defended her dissertation and was waiting for Georgetown University to confer her degree.

Drudge blares: "CURVEBALL: WOMAN BEHIND CASE FOR SYRIA STRIKE FIRED FOR LYING."

IN THE COMMENTS: Tom Ault said:

After I defended my dissertation, I was told by my adviser that I could start calling myself a PhD as soon as my committee signed off on it, even though the degree wouldn't be formally conferred on me until sometime later. I suspect that the lack of a formal PhD in this case is simply cover for firing a scapegoat. 

I agree.

UPDATE: "O’Bagy confirmed to The Daily Beast that she was only enrolled in a master’s program at Georgetown and had applied to join the joint MA/Ph.D. program but was never accepted."

“I would like to deeply apologize to every person with whom I have worked, who has read and depended upon my research, and to the general public,” O’Bagy said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “While I have made many mistakes and showed extremely poor judgment, I most particularly regret my public misrepresentation of my educational status and not immediately disclosing that I had not been awarded a doctorate in May, 2013.” 

"Unbelievably small."

John Kerry.

Did Kerry say we won't put "boots on the ground" in Syria?

It's complicated.

I think he just wanted to stop Congress from putting a limitation in the authorization, because the President never wants to be limited, but the President limited himself by going to Congress and asking for authorization, which he seems also to maintain that he doesn't need:

Later, Kerry returned to the question, saying “I don’t want anyone misinterpreting this from me earlier” and specifying that in the authorization of force proposed by the administration “there’s zero capacity” for ground troops. Kerry reiterated that he was “hypothesizing” about potential future scenarios, “but not in this authorization.”

Why is he using the word "authorization"? Shouldn't the secret argument be that if they suddenly need to react to a fluid situation by putting boots on the ground, the President has the power to do that, just as the President believes he can launch the air attack on his own, but is simply choosing to ask Congress to approve? What he doesn't want — I would think — is for this approval to contain any disapproval.

The President is strongest when he acts in accordance with Congress's expressed approval. The middle level of power is acting alone, where Congress is silent. He's got the least power when he's acting against the position taken by Congress. He doesn't want his effort to get into category 1 with respect to the air attack to deprive him of the category 2 level of power with respect to other actions he might want to take in the future. He doesn't want to get stuck in category 3.

"Smooth, Europhile Democrats would win over the world, ushering in an era of peace and good feeling."

That was the promise back in 2008. It seems so stupid now. And speaking of stupid, remember how stupid Bush was?

Say what you will about George W. Bush's diplomacy, but he nurtured relationships with our most important allies -- like Britain -- and managed to put together a huge multinational coalition for his own foray against an Arab dictator suspected of having chemical weapons. Obama's diplomatic efforts -- championed by Hillary Clinton and, now, John Kerry -- are looking more and more inept by comparison: So far, our only ally in the proposed Syria venture is France, maybe.

Let's give Hillary some credit for ducking out at the right moment.... hitting her own reset button... leaving Obama in the... shall we say?... lurch.

"How the U.S. Left is Failing Over Syria."

Interested in how consistent the anti-war left has been about Obama's military adventures, I ran across this Counterpunch piece by Shamus Cooke:

It’s now painfully clear that Obama’s war on Syria is a replay of Bush’s march to war in Iraq, both built on lies. Zero evidence has been put forth that proves the Syrian government used chemical weapons. On the contrary, evidence has been collected that suggests the U.S.-backed Syrian rebels are responsible for the attack.

If Obama wages an aggressive attack on Syria — especially without UN authorization — he’ll be committing a major international crime that will, by any standard, make him a war criminal, just like Bush before him.

And because Obama’s attack on Syria followed Bush’s logic, you’d assume that liberal, progressive, and other Left groups would do what they did when Bush went to war: denounce it unconditionally and organize against it.

Of course, this isn't happening.

ADDED: Cooke says: "Every head of state that is targeted by the U.S. government must be portrayed as an inspiring 'Hitler,' since attacking a nation led by 'Hitler' is, of course, a 'good' thing to do."

And sure enough, here's John Kerry today, doubling down on Assad is Hitler: "Secretary of State John Kerry told House Democrats that the United States faced a 'Munich moment' in deciding whether to respond to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government."

I trust Senator Kerry, and I think he’s genuine. And I met him five times." Assad said.

In 2010:

"The word 'slam-dunk' should be retired from the American national security issues."

Said John Kerry on "Meet the Press" today, when David Gregory asked him: "This is a sarin gas attack, perpetrated by the Assad regime, this is a slam-dunk case that he did it?"

The term "slam-dunk" figured large in the run-up to the Iraq War. Hence the resistance. It should connote certainty, but the meaning got flipped. To use it now is to seem to say: How do we know you're not conning us? And I'm going to assume David Gregory meant the insinuation, because everyone's been making the comparison to the selling of the Iraq War.

"How do you ask John Kerry to be the fall guy, go on all the Sunday morning talk shows, and try to cover up for your own leadership mistake?"

Asks Meade, in the comments to "How do you ask a man to be the [first] man to die for a mistake?" — which was yesterday's post, titled after Meade's rewrite of Kerry's famous question, " How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

So, we watched the talk shows today, and in addition to Kerry, on "Meet the Press," there was Rand Paul, and just about the first thing he said was:

... I think it's a mistake to get involved in the Syrian civil war. And what I want would ask John Kerry is, he's famous for saying, "How can you ask a man to be the last one to die for a mistake?" I would ask John Kerry, "How can you ask a man to be the first one to die from a mistake?"

I'm not saying Rand reads the Althouse blog, but hi, Rand. Rand was remarkable — or seemed remarkable in contrast to Kerry, who preceded him — because he listened to the questions and appeared to think in real time and then verbalize actual answers.

Kerry filibustered, evading David Gregory's questions, such as "If Congress says no [to an attack on Syria], the president will act regardless of what Congress says?" Nonanswer: "I said that the president has the authority to act, but the Congress is going to do what's right here." Note the "I said," like he's already answered and now he's forced to repeat himself.

Somehow I started feeling sorry for Kerry, having to be the one to go around to all the talk shows. And he looked so weary. He looked awful, weirdly different from usual, like something wasn't right. His hair was fine. (It's a wig, right?) But his eyes were mismatched, and he kept sticking out his tongue like this:



Is there some tongue-out disease going around this week, some virulence of chapped lips? (Cf. "21 Obnoxious Photos of Miley’s Tongue.") That particular shot was taken immediately after he said the words "the American people," which annoyed Meade so much that he backtracked to pause it so I could photograph it.

What I really want to do, now that I have the transcript, is go through and find all the ways Kerry managed to say that the President needs to go to Congress and doesn't need to go to Congress. I'll update this post and show you soon.

ADDED: Here's how Kerry avoided saying the President needed authority from Congress:

Now why go to Congress? Because the United States of America is stronger when the Congress of the United States representing the people and the President of the United States are acting together. And the president wants that strength represented in this initiative….

The issue originally was, "Should the President of the United States take action…?"… There was no decision not to do that. And the President has the right to do that…. The president then made the decision that he thought we would be stronger and the United States would act with greater moral authority and greater strength if we acted in a united way….

He believes we need to move, he's made his decision. Now it's up to the Congress of the United States to join him….

I hope and pray it will be seen as careful deliberation, as appropriate exercise of American constitutional process. The United States is strongest when the Congress speaks with the president….

[To the question: “If Congress says no, the president will act regardless of what Congress says?”] I said that the president has the authority to act, but the Congress is going to do what's right here.

I was intrigued by the phrase "American constitutional process." If the President can act on his own — and almost did — then what "constitutional process" is in seeking approval? That's the only time Kerry mentions the Constitution, and note how quickly he shifts to assertions about what makes the United States "strongest." He seems to say the Congress should go along with the President to make the country strong, but the Constitution has the safeguard of the separation of powers, and it's only because Congress operates independently that the conjunction of presidential and congressional power yields strength. Congress can't produce strength in the country by becoming compliant to the President. Though that does make the President stronger, the President is not the country.

Nicely played, Mr. Obama.

Besieged on all sides, he made the right move. He's asking Congress, obviously because he wants to be told "no," but this way he'll be able to blame Congress for any bad consequences or accusations of such.

In a hastily organized appearance in the Rose Garden, Mr. Obama said he had decided that the United States should use force but would wait for a vote from lawmakers, who are not due to return to town for more than a week. Mr. Obama said he believed he has authority to act on his own but did not say whether he would if Congress rejects his plan.

Hastily organized... Congress out of town... Cameron just got out of having to participate by getting his "no" from the legislature... sending Kerry out yesterday to test the reaction was a total bomb. It's kind of a little obvious, and he didn't really have another good move, but I'm going to celebrate the occasion with a Nicely played, Mr. Obama.

ADDED: I would have put this post up a lot sooner, but Meade and I went downtown to see what kind of anti-war protests there might be here in Madison. I'll have some amusing video soon.

“How do you ask a man to be the [first] man to die for a mistake?”

Meade IM's a rewrite of John Kerry's famous Vietnam question: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"



The rewrite is on the occasion of John Kerry's new role as Secretary of Defense State:

Kerry Becomes Chief Advocate for U.S. Attack

Jabbing his finger at the lectern, his voice forceful, his words brimming with indignation, John Kerry laid out the case like the prosecutor he once was, making a closing argument to a skeptical jury.

Again and again, some 24 times in all, he used the phrase “we know” as he described the intelligence that Syria’s government massacred more than 1,400 people with chemical weapons. And then, while saying no decision had been made, he left no doubt that the United States would respond with military power.

Here's Bruce Springsteen in 2007 — back when Bush was Prez and everything sounded different —  yelling and guitarizing the morality of "Last to Die":

Who'll be the last to die for a mistake
The last to die for a mistake
Darlin' will tyrants and kings fall to the same fate
Strung up at your city gates
And you're the last to die for a mistake

I don't know, darlin', but darlin' Barack is President now. Let's check the Springsteen set lists. "Last to Die" is #108 on his most-played list and — by coincidence — it's been played 108 times. (For comparison: "Born to Run" is #1 and has been played 1347 times.) Springsteen has only played "Last to Die" 4 times during the Obama administration, 3 times in October 2009 and 1 last March. (The other 104 times were from September 2007, when it was first played, to August 30, 2008.)

Bruce's current tour is called the "Wrecking Ball Tour" so maybe his more into destruction these days, but I suspect the tour name is just a 64-year-old man's effort to maintain the ethos of rock and roll. Maybe he supports Barack Obama's military adventures, because, you know, it's Barack Obama, man.

I mean, I am just generally wondering, where are all the war protests? I was thinking about going down to the Capital Square this morning. It's a summer Saturday here in Madison, Wisconsin, and the crowds are there, at least for the Farmers Market. There should be some protesters, don't you think? Anti-war protesters, not just anti-governor-trying-to-balance-the-budget protesters.

But I'd like to see Bruce Springsteen whip out "Last to Die" and tweak it to "First to Die." 

The Russians hang onto Snowden.

Or Snowden melts into Russia.

Mr. Snowden has not been seen publicly or photographed since his reported arrival in Moscow on Sunday afternoon from Hong Kong, and passengers on that flight interviewed at the airport could not confirm that he was on board.

The information about Snowden doesn't want to be free.

Maybe the U.S. got him.

The situation remained a confounding and undoubtedly infuriating one for American officials, who have charged Mr. Snowden with illegally disclosing classified documents about American surveillance programs.

Undoubtedly?

I doubt everything.

"I would urge [the Russians] to live by the standards of the law,” [Secretary of State John] Kerry said.

Enigmatically.

“US bullying Russia for Snowden’s rendition is counterproductive. No self-respecting state would accept such unlawful demands,” [Wikileaks] wrote. The use of “rendition” was an explicit reference to the way the United States has handled terrorism suspects....

Standards of law... must interpret...

Russia had seemed intent on allowing Mr. Snowden to transit through Moscow but at the highest levels of the Russian government, officials seemed to be pulling a page from a cold war playbook, coyly denying any knowledge about Mr. Snowden.

The Russians, the NYT openly doubts.

“Over all, we have no information about him,” Dmitri Peskov, the spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin, told Reuters early on Monday.

The pesky Peskov.

Mr. Kerry said that it was ironic that Mr. Snowden may have been seeking the cooperation of China and Russian [sic] in his flight, given their positions in restricting Internet freedom.  

Ironic ≈ verrry innnterrresting.

It was unclear how Mr. Snowden spent his time at the airport or precisely where. 

Who knows what sorts of VIP rooms they have at the Moscow airport?

The departure of the flight to Havana from Moscow came after an all-night vigil by journalists who were posted outside a hotel in the transit zone of the airport where Mr. Snowden was apparently staying. But on Monday morning, hotel staff members said that no one named Snowden was staying there.

Disappeared... despite the vigil by journalists... at a hotel that was near the airport.

Russian news services had reported that Mr. Snowden would take a Monday afternoon flight to Cuba, prompting a late rush for tickets from the horde of journalists gathered at the airport. 

Hey, journalists, stampede this way! Vigil at the hotel, stampede to the airport. It's like they're teenage girls trying to catch a glimpse of The Beatles.

As long as John Kerry brought up irony... it's ironic that the Snowden emerged to tell us about the nefarious, overwhelming, all-encompassing, and abusive surveillance powers of the United States, and the country can't find one man who made himself conspicuous.

3 Pinocchios to John Kerry for asserting that the U.S. is "below the Kyoto levels" on emissions.

WaPo's Fact Checker Glenn Kessler finds "significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions." But look at what the problem is:

While Kerry noted in his comments that more needs to be done on climate change, his inaccurate recounting of U.S. performance on the Kyoto emissions targets leaves the wrong impression. Low natural gas prices and the economic downtown — not specific policies — have been the prime factors in the emissions reductions, especially for carbon dioxide.

There were supposed to be specific policies clamping down on the offenders, not a big recession that the government was (supposedly) trying to avoid/reverse.

Isn't it sad that in all of our suffering through economic malaise, we failed to rejoice and soothe ourselves with the knowledge that we were restricting the production of greenhouse gases? That was not the kind of suffering that the environmentalists had hoped for, and to proclaim the recession a good thing would not have played well in the political arena.

But how different would the environmentalists' specific policies have been? If we'd voluntarily submitted to specific policies, we could have prided ourselves in our virtue. To have inadvertently reached the same result doesn't feel the same.

But the climate change problem isn't about our virtue and our feelings. Is it?

"Many academics branded Bush a failure long before his presidency ended...

"... and not just fringe elements of the academy, such as Ward Churchill or Howard Zinn, but also scholars from the nation’s most prestigious universities."

Writes Professor Stephen F. Knott, noting some choice examples, including:

Historian Douglas Brinkley, author of a flattering election-year biography of 2004 presidential nominee John Kerry, declared in 2006 that “it’s safe to bet that Bush will be forever handcuffed to the bottom rungs of the presidential ladder” and that Bush purposely tried to “brutalize his opponents.”

Handcuffed to the bottom rungs? What a crappy writer Brinkley is! Picture someone handcuffed to the bottom rungs. Feet go on the rungs of a ladder, and handcuffs go on wrists. Is Bush trying to climb a ladder in the handstand position? Apparently, these elite historians would like to require any advancement by Bush to be done at a severe disadvantage.

It's been a bad first quarter of first year of the second term for President Obama.

1. It's been so bad that the media dropped their erstwhile foible of talking about everything that happens in terms of what it means for Obama. And here it is, the first lap of his new term, when there's more reason than usual to talk about how things are working out for the President.

2. Obama made gun control his big issue leading into the new term. He tried so hard to deploy his speaking skills to channel the nation's emotion after the Sandy Hook massacre, and in the end he couldn't even wrangle all of the Democrats in the Senate, and he was reduced yesterday to surrounding himself with human vessels of tragedy and "a scowling Vice President Biden" and pronounce it "all in all...  a pretty shameful day for Washington." The media offered weak support by describing him as passionately angry, but I watched the video and found it surprising dull. I couldn't motivate myself to go over to my computer to blog about it last night. Obama knew he was going to lose. The theater of sympathy and outrage had gone on far too long, the show was a flop, and the leading man was obliged to take his curtain call.

3. North Korea apparently has a nuclear weapon and the nerve to use it (or to pose as if it does), and the new Secretary of State, the exceedingly dreary John Kerry, is sojourning in the general area nattering about global warming —  "the Foreign Minister and I agreed to raise the initiative above the level that it is today" — and meanwhile, back in the United States, it's really cold.

4. Obama's efforts to get some lightweight good press over basketball failed. His bracket was busted, and a cutesy photo-op produced an embarrassing video in which he went 2 for 22. That he could play basketball was an element of his legend, and now it's that video that comes to mind when we think of Obama and basketball. Does he even have another sport? Golf? Golf, unlike basketball, never worked as an element of the Obama legend.

5. He shut off White House tours, presumably on the theory that it would spark outrage at the sequester (and those terrible Republicans), but that gesture clashed with his own fun in the White House. Ordinary kids had their field trips canceled, while Obama's daughters got Justin Timberlake to come to the White House and perform right in front of them. It was another of the many parties. Wasn't Beyonce just there? And then she and Jay-Z went to Cuba, and, when criticized, Jay-Z put out a pissy rap tune that (I think) insulted Obama.

6. George Bush is making a comeback, with some charming new elements: He's a granddad and he paints pictures of dogs. The big library is opening. And then there's the new disaster in Waco, just 45 miles from his Crawford ranch, giving Bush reason to do a low-profile but touching trip to comfort the injured and the bereaved. So now does that mean Obama has to go to Texas? He's already going to Boston for a memorial service. How can he not go to Texas? But Texas is not comfortable territory for Obama.

7. Margaret Thatcher up and died. What rotten luck! What a platform for the promoters of the ideology in opposition to his! And then idiots take to the streets with all that "Ding, Dong the Witch Is Dead" childishness and disrespect, damaging the left-wing brand. Should Obama attend the funeral? Ah, at least send the Vice President. At least send somebody! No. He sends nobody.

8. What's the legislative agenda? Immigration reform? WaPo headlines: "Obama isn’t leading on immigration, and that’s a good thing." The media's attempts to help are getting really embarrassing. He's not leading, but, see, that's a good thing. Let us explain why: "Presidential leadership is a polarizing force...." Blah blah blah. What really matters are the 2014 elections. Just hang back and wait. Nothing but weakness and failure might just be a devious strategy for winning 565 days from now.

9. What's happening with Obamacare? That was the achievement of Obama's first term. If there's one thing he ought to do with this second term, it's make sure that thing gets implemented in a way that works with some degree of smoothness, at least enough that — when people finally notice what's been in the works for so long —  we don't freak out entirely. But: "A senior Democratic senator who helped write President Barack Obama’s health care law stunned administration officials Wednesday, saying openly he thinks it’s headed for a 'train wreck' because of bumbling implementation.'"

10. The trial of Kermit Gosnell is fogging up the clarity achieved in 2012 victory in the War on Women.

Rand Paul made being against the drones... cool.

"John Kerry invents country of Kyrzakhstan."

He's fully cognizant of Kyrzakhstan....



I'm adding my "the blog has a theme today" tag. See if you can guess the theme!

"We know what happened in Benghazi now... but what we don't know is why we were misled."

Ron Johnson, questioning John Kerry. I'm breaking out what I think is the main quote. Look how differently this exchange is presented at TPM.

This was the same disconnect that Hillary Clinton tried to pull off when Ron Johnson questioned her the other day and she had her "What difference does it make?" outburst. She wanted us to focus on the point in time when the attackers decided to attack.

"Was it because of a protest or because of guys out for a walk one night who decide to kill some Americans, what difference at this point does it make?"

It. She has the wrong it. Johnson's question to her and then to Kerry related to the point in time when the people in the Obama administration decided to mislead the public by actively pushing a phony story about the "Innocence of Muslims" video. That was a strange thing to do, and both Clinton and Kerry have doggedly distracted us by pretending the question is why the attack occurred.

"We will look forward to interrogating [John Kerry] mercilessly.... We will bring back for the only time waterboarding to get the truth out of him."

John McCain makes a torture joke.

Is that okay?
	Yes, because McCain has a special privilege to speak however he wants about torture.
	Yes, because waterboarding is enhanced interrogation and not torture.
	Yes, because I'd like to see Kerry, in particular, tortured (mildly).
	No, because torture should be taken with the utmost seriousness.
	No, because it's just not funny enough.
	No, because Kerry is a fine man of stunning gravitas.
pollcode.com free polls

We're supposed to believe John Kerry is this much of a comedian?

He supposedly gave this answer to the question how he deals with jet lag:

"When I’m flying, I usually take an Ambien and listen to one of my own speeches on my iPod. I’m out in seconds. But it doesn’t always work, and sometimes you’ll have some funny moments from being overtired. There was an incident in New Orleans, at Mardi Gras, in 1997. But the video has been destroyed and I gave the beads back."

Come on. That sounds like one of Jay Leno's monologue writers wrote it. But speaking of Kerry and comedy, I was just thinking of him in connection with that whole clown suit business — how much credibility one loses dressing up in a clown suit, and that time Kerry's people let him do this:



Once you put on that clown suit, people will have that image of you as a clown forever.

Barney Frank does want Kerry's Senate seat.

"A month ago, or a few weeks ago, I said I wasn’t interested... It was kind of like you’re about to graduate, and they said: 'You gotta go to summer school.' But [the fiscal cliff deal] now means that February, March and April are going to be among the most important months in American financial history.... “I’ve told the governor I would now like, frankly, to do that...."