With the leadership vacuum in Washington why is it such a surprise that ObamaCare sucks!

The American People are finally learning about ObamaCare. Up until now most people only knew what Democrats and Republicans were saying about the program. It turns out that both parties were missing the point. Democrats were describing ObamaCare as the solution to all our problems. Finally the U.S. would join all the other civilized nations in the world with free health care for all. They ignored the fact that we already had the best health care system in the world, that everyone who needed treatment was already getting it, and that this was largely because the federal government wasn’t involved. Republicans were complaining about the enormous cost and the government takeover of the health care system.

What makes ObamaCare unique is that it is totally partisan. It was passed by a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate and it was signed by a Democratic President without one single Republican vote. Actually it was worse than that. In order to secure enough votes, the Obama administration resorted to the “Louisiana Purchase” and the “Cornhusker Kickback” to get over the top. But wait, there was more to come. When Ted Kennedy died, Massachusetts violated its own law so Governor Patrick could make a temporary appointment to the Senate just in time to cast the deciding vote. What a country. Then, just recently, Democrats doubled down on ObamaCare when they shut down the government rather than delay it or negotiate any changes.

All of this nonsense took place during a time when no one even knew what ObamaCare was all about. This monstrous bill was over 10,000 plus pages long and few, if any, understood it. I don’t know what Democrats thought they were voting for in 2009, but I can pretty much guarantee it wasn’t the national flop that was launched on October 1.

ObamaCare is a return to the Sears catalog theory of marketing. I called this the “good,” “better,” “best” approach. Suppose you wanted to purchase a refrigerator. You could purchase good, which didn’t look all that good, or better, which was nicer than good but still not quite up to par, or best, which was always too expensive. Ultimately, which ever choice you made left you feeling uneasy. If you bought good, you wondered if good was really good or were you buying an inferior product. Plus you felt a little embarrassed that you could only afford good. All the neighbors had a Sear catalog too, so they knew you took the cheap out. But better was always a lot more expensive than good, but still a second class product. And if you bought best, you always wondered if you had been tricked into paying too much for features you didn’t want or need.

Well ObamaCare is set up on the same model. But Instead of good, better or best, you get “Bronze,” “Silver,” “Gold” or “Platinum.” Now it’s one thing to feel you are getting an inferior product, when buying a refrigerator, but what if you are being asked to settle for inferior coverage when it comes to something as important as health care ?  That is a real problem. Suddenly it becomes obvious that if you can only afford “Bronze” or “Silver” you are automatically a third or fourth class citizen. And this time, being a fourth class citizen means that getting actual treatment costs more.  On the other hand, “Platinum” is not all that spectacular, compared to what is available in the market place for people who can afford to pay the platinum price.

In other words, ObamaCare sucks. It not only costs too much, it is not only killing the economy, it is not only bankrupting the federal government; it sucks. It sucks the most for those who were waiting desperately for the greatest thing since sliced bread. What is worse than being forced to buy a government designed piece of crap with a one size fits all mentality? Easy. Being forced to buy a government designed piece of crap where rich people get much better health care coverage because they can afford to pay for Gold or Platinum The richer you are the better the plan you can afford and the lower the cost you pay for actual treatment. What idiot came up with this idea?

I thought ObamaCare was going to crash and burn because the Obama administration bit off ten times the amount they could chew. I was right about that, by the way. I thought ObamaCare would crash and burn because it would raise the cost of health care for everyone. I was right about that too. I thought ObamaCare was going to crash and burn because it would make obtaining good health care harder for everyone. I was also right about that. But what I missed was the potential that ObamaCare would be so poorly designed that the product itself is the biggest problem. It won’t take long for the poor, who desperately longed for free healthcare to realize that ObamaCare is more expensive, it provides less coverage and it makes them feel even more like second class citizens (oops…third or fourth class citizens). To add insult to the injury, if you don’t want ObamaCare you have to pay a fine.

I am now convinced that ObamaCare will be a catastrophic failure on the level of the Edsel. They will be talking about the stupidity of this design long after ObamaCare has been dumped on the scrapheap of history. Just imagine what is going to happen with all those liberals find out they have sold their soul, assuming they still believe they have a soul, for a piece of crap like this. When socialism fails, as it always does, liberals turn on their leaders. Obama will get most of the blame for this, but Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi can also cancel their dreams of making the liberal hall of fame.  Liberals will be convinced that victory was in their grasp, if only Obama had been able to provide better guidance on the path to nirvana.

I wonder how long it will take the MSM to figure this out?

TDM

It turns out that the Obama Administration should have done a little research on the national ObamaCare Hotline Number.

The number is 1-800-318-2596.  It was actually published back in June, but only recently someone figured out what the phone number spells.

Following is a link to the article:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/10/03/you-cant-make-this-up-guess-what-the-obamacare-hotline-number-nearly-spells/

Actually, I think the Daily Caller may have come up with this, but I am not sure.  In any event one of my daughters came up with this response.  I think it is brilliant.

 1-800 TOLD U SO

We are very proud parents.

TDM

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Have any of you ever watched Texas Hold-em Poker.  There is always the moment when someone goes all in.  Then everyone turns over their cards and they wait, desperately, for the river card.  In most cases everything depends on the river card.  If you lose, after you went all in, the defeat is total.

Democrats have gone all in on ObamaCare.  Republicans not so much.  Republicans will be blamed for the government shut down, but that would hardly be a fatal blow.  They did this in 1995 and they still maintained control of both the House and the Senate at the next election.  But Democrats are risking everything on ObamaCare.  Shutting down the government is one thing.  Shutting it down so you can arrogantly inflict a major disaster on the American people is something else.

We will soon know.  If the administration had half a brain they would have tried out ObamaCare in a couple of small states to figure out how it worked.  That would have been the smart thing to do.  But instead the administration decided to implement ObamaCare all over the country at once.  When the clock struck midnight Monday night, ObamaCare became reality.

Almost immediately there was a mad rush to check it out.  Most people appear to have gotten a busy signal.  Millions of people have been checking out the ObamaCare website.  If they like what they find, Democrats have just run the table.  If they hate what they find, Democrats just doubled down on disaster.

So how will we know?  The answer is easy.  It all depends on price.   ObamaCare is either a great deal or it isn’t.  At least some people are expecting to get free health care.  They are going to be bitterly disappointed to learn they are expected to pay for this.  Others will be hoping to buy high quality health insurance at great savings.  So far, that doesn’t seem to be happening.  Instead people are reportedly shocked by the high premiums and the high deductibles.   This could be a case of nationwide sticker shock.

What makes this worse is that the highest costs are for people between 19 and 34.  The Obama administration desperately needs a high percentage of people in this demographic to participate.  Yet ObamaCare appears to be least attractive to exactly this group.  If this age group doesn’t enroll, ObamaCare is financially insolvent from day one.

So who will like ObamaCare?  That is easy.  It will be very attractive to people who have no money, because they will get it for free.  It will also be attractive to people who have pre-existing conditions and cannot buy coverage anywhere else.  In the health insurance industry, they call this adverse selection.  If this happens it will put ObamaCare financing into an irreversible death spiral.  The higher they raise premiums, the more adverse selection.  Eventually you can’t possibly charge enough.

I think ObamaCare is going to be a nationwide disaster impossible to ignore.  If that is true, Republicans will go from villains for shutting down the government, to heroes for trying to save us from ObamaCare.

As John Kennedy once said:  “there is an old saying that victory has 100 fathers, but defeat is an orphan.”   The jury is out on ObamaCare and when that verdict is delivered by the American people it will be the ultimate river card.  Anything could happen, but right now ObamaCare looks like an orphan.

TDM

Tonight I was watching Fox News with regard to the shutdown, so I sent them an e-mail.  to my shock, they read the e-mail to the panel about two minutes later.

Following is what I wrote:

Since 1975, the government has shut down 17 times.  The longest shutdown lasted for three weeks during December of 1995 and January of 1996. That was also the most recent shutdown.  Since Democrats were in control of congress for most of the period between 1975 and 1992, guess which political party was most willing to shut down the government?  I wonder if anyone in the main stream media will notice that!  It may surprise you to learn that during each of the prior government shutdowns the world kept on turning and the sun rose and set as per usual.

The shutdown will not impact the military, border control agents, air traffic controllers, the FBI, the TSA or anyone else considered to be essential.  Social Security checks will still be delivered and Medicare payments will continue.  Of course the President, members of congress and their staff will be exempt, because they are considered essential too.  However it is true that it is expensive to shut down the government, because eventually everyone gets paid anyway.

Of course the Obama administration will attempt to implement the shutdown in a way that causes the most possible damage in the least amount of time.  That was the Obama administration strategy for administering the “sequester.”  But, if you think about it, that didn’t work.  The sequester is still in effect and somehow, someway, most of us are surviving.  When is the last time you heard someone talk about the terrible impact of the sequester?  My point exactly!

FDR said it best:  “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  The main stream media will desperately try to gin up as much fear as possible.  President Obama, Harry Reid and the normal class of clowns will double down on the dire predictions and they will do everything possible to make them true.  But the simple reality is that we could do just fine without a large section of the federal government functioning at all.

Perhaps the biggest fear for democrats should be that once people realize the true impact of a government shutdown they might start to like it.  That is what happened in all those dumb states that elected Republican Governors who cut things that could not be cut.  Those states have something we would not recognize in California; a balanced budget, lower taxes and a thriving economy.  What a terrible price to pay for listening to those idiotic and irresponsible republicans.

So when you hear those folks on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and even FOX NEWS start to hyperventilate about the dreaded “government shutdown” keep this in mind.  I can pretty much guarantee that the sun will come up tomorrow and perhaps even the day after tomorrow.  Most of us will notice zero impact from the government shut down, other than being forced to listen to the bleating and blathering of the main stream media and politicians in both parties.   We have survived a government shutdown seventeen times since 1975.  Somehow, I think we can survive this one too.

TDM

Pundits are predicting that republicans will get most of the blame for shutting down the government. They are probably right about that. The main stream media will do everything possible to focus blame on republicans. President Obama will definitely blame republicans and so will Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Within a very short period of time, most people will understand that republicans are willing to shut down the government to stop ObamaCare.

But the real question is not who wins this battle, but rather who wins this war. Democrats are caught between a rock and a hard place. The problem is that ObamaCare is a train wreck. The best thing that could happen for democrats would be a one year delay.  Instead, democrats are demanding that we fund ObamaCare now and implement it immediately.  It is the ultimate “ready or not here we come” play.  I believe that in taking this position, democrats are setting themselves up for a huge problem right around the corner. Ultimately, the biggest loss for democrats may come from winning this battle.

In every war, there are casualties on both sides and a lot of collateral damage.  Both parties have decided to go all in on ObamaCare.  This time, the rejection of the revised House bill went strictly along party lines.  Every single Democrat in the Senate voted to fully fund ObamaCare with no delays.  They also voted to add that awful tax on medical devices.  Every Republican in the Senate voted no.  At some point, republicans are likely to yield to democrats and partially fund ObamaCare.  That will appear to be a major win for democrats, but the more they gain the more they lose.

If ObamaCare is the train wreck most people predict, then by going all in democrats will own it.  One the other hand, if ObamaCare is a major success, republicans are making a huge mistake.

Sometimes a government shutdown just shows how little positive impact the government has on our lives.  Everything that matters will go on, just as before.  The grim predictions of terrible things will not happen.  Eventually even the main stream media will notice that the world will keep on turning with or without the aid of the federal government.  The risk here for democrats is that there is a government shutdown and no one notices.

TDM

President Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi had one last chance to avoid an unmitigated political disaster.  Ted Cruz has given them a way out.  They can grudgingly pass the continuing resolution, which defunds ObamaCare and blame Republicans for the resulting mess.  But they are too stupid and too arrogant to realize that, so instead they will fight to the last breath to save ObamaCare.  They will think they are winning because they are sure Americans will be angry at republicans for the government shutdown.  When there was a government shutdown in 1995, Republicans did get a majority of the blame:  from the main stream media, but not from the American people.  Republicans retained control of both the House and the Senate in the next election.  In addition, Bill Clinton’s favorability rating dropped like a stone.  He eventually recovered and won re-election, but only because the Republicans nominated Bob Dole, who had no discernible pulse.  Ultimately, congress will find a way to fund the government.  In the meantime, Democrats will own ObamaCare lock stock and barrel.  Cruz is making them wear ObamaCare like a coat.

ObamaCare is a train wreck and the devastation will be here sooner than you can imagine.  Every employer in the United States is required to give every employee written notification of ObamaCare before October 1, 2013.  These notices are designed to inform everyone how the ObamaCare exchanges work.  So even though the Employer Mandate has been delayed for a year, the notices have to go out now.  I suspect that a lot, if not most employers, will give out the notices this week.  That means ObamaCare will suddenly be reality for a lot of people.  At a minimum it will be change that no one really understands.  They won’t even know when it starts.  How much will it cost?  How do I obtain treatment?  Can I keep my doctor?  What is covered?  What is not covered?  Why am I getting this notice now if the employer mandate was delayed for a year?  We just may see a million people with a million questions and no one available to provide any answers.

What about the doctors, or the hospitals, or the drug companies or the home health care givers?  How are they going to be paid?  How much can they charge?  Where do they send the paperwork?  How long will this take?  The ObamaCare train is traveling at high speed, it has already turned the corner and it has zero change of staying on the rails.  The only thing certain is chaos.

Just about the time Democrats start gloating about how they defeated that idiot Cruz, they are going to be confronted with the awful reality of ObamaCare.  If they were smart they would have used Ted Cruz to justify another delay.  This was one battle they couldn’t afford to fight and one where winning may be more costly than losing.

In the meantime, Ted Cruz yielded the floor, after talking for over 21 hours.  Even if you think this was a dumb idea and a futile gesture, you have to be impressed with the sheer energy and determination.  Ted Cruz may lose this fight, but this is a man who truly believes what he says and he speaks with conviction.  We would be wise to listen to such people.

I would not automatically assume that Cruz will be the loser in this.  We have rarely seen a politician with this level of determination.  I guarantee you that virtually every political advisor was telling Cruz not to do this.  So the question is what drives Ted Cruz.  Is he so arrogant that he just ignores sound advice and proceeds full speed ahead?  Or is he just determined to do what he considers to be right.  History tells us that a lot of important victories were won by people too stupid to know they couldn’t win.  When you stand on your feet for more than 21 hours, I think it is safe to assume he is fueled by a higher source than his own arrogance.

His final statement, before yielding the floor, was:  “the pleas from the American people are deafening.”  If he is right, and I suspect he is, then we may have just witnessed something rare and compelling.  One man, fueled only by his personal determination, refused to surrender when everyone around him had given up hope.  If he somehow prevails it will be a beautiful thing.

TDM

All of the pundits are predicting that Republicans in the Senate will blink and approve the continued funding of ObamaCare.  They may be right, based on the past performance of RINOs like John McCain and Lindsey Graham.  It is definitely true that the main stream media is working overtime to make that happen.  But there are reasons to question whether the conventional wisdom will work this time.

There has been a recent and dramatic change within the Republican leadership.  The most obvious change is with John Boehner, but there has also been an observable change in Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy.  Even the Washington Post noticed:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-the-great-gop-leadership-turnaround/2013/09/18/8dd9b374-20a2-11e3-966c-9c4293c47ebe_story.htm

Up until now, the Republican leadership has been terrified that Republicans will get blamed for any shut down of the government.  At times it seemed like Cruz was the only one who believed that defunding ObamaCare was even possible.  Following is a link to an article about this in August:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cruz-nobody-has-argued-shutdown-would-defund-obamacare_742511.html

I’m convinced that if we don’t stand and fight now, we never will, if we don’t stand and defund Obamacare today, we are saying that we surrender, and Obamacare will be a permanent feature of our economy going forward. And so the question I ask to those friends of ours in the Senate and the House who are concerned about fighting on the Continuing Resolution, the simple question is, what is the alternative? What is the alternative to actually defeat Obamacare, not to speak about it, not to give a press release, but to stop it? Because if its right that once the subsidies kick in, this ain’t ever going away, I have yet to see any other alternative that has any prospect whatsoever of prevailing.

Ted Cruz argued that if Republicans vote to fund every element of the government, except ObamaCare Democrats will be the ones who shut down the government.  John McCain was too busy bad mouthing Cruz to realize that he had a point.

It is quite possible that Republicans in the senate will cave, as they usually do and vote to fund ObamaCare.  That does not mean that the problem ends there.  The Senate cannot fund ObamaCare unless the House agrees.  We just may be headed toward a showdown and it is far from clear that House Republicans are going to back down.  For the first time, thanks to leaders like Ted Cruz, Republicans are learning to play hardball.  It appears as though they are going to do something remarkable.  They are going to keep sending single issue spending bills to the Senate and ultimately to the President.  Just think about the reality of this.  Suppose they send a bill to fund Social Security checks, but nothing else.  Will Harry Reid dare block that?  Will Obama dare veto it?  How exactly will Harry Reid respond if Republicans keep sending him clean bills, funding those parts of the government that are not in dispute, but never including one dime for ObamaCare.  How about a bill to fund Medicare or to pay our military.  Don’t assume that Harry Reid and the Democrats in the Senate are the only side of this war with any ammunition.

While left is licking its chops with firm belief that Democrats win this argument, they may be very wrong.  This is not 1995 and the liberal left no longer controls how the American people think.  The days when the New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS, ABC and NBC were able to control public opinion are just a distant memory.  While the liberal left still believes, the majority of Americans have already moved on.

Obama has lost all credibility as a leader.  The most important decision a President ever makes is the decision to go to war.  President Obama announced that our national security was at risk in Syria and that he had made the decision to use military force.   But he didn’t actually authorize the use of force, instead he asked congress to approve the use of force.  Then, incredibly, Obama asked for prime time to ask congress to delay voting to authorize force because his BFF, Vladimir Putin, was going to talk Syria out of its chemical weapons.  This is beyond pathetic.

There are only two possibilities here, both bad.  One is that President Obama really believed our national security was at stake, but he chose to back down.  The other is that he brought us to the brink of war, without just cause. In either case, when Obama blinked he lost all credibility as a leader.  Republicans know this and that is part of the reason they are willing to challenge him.

Just a few weeks ago, it seemed unlikely that there would even be a vote in the House to defund ObamaCare.  The smart money was that Boehner would by-pass Republicans and use a combination of Democrats and Republicans to pass compromise legislation to continue funding the government.  The liberal media was gloating about the disarray in the Republican Party.

There are already signs that at least some Republicans in the Senate are reluctantly supporting Ted Cruz.  There is no doubt that some republicans, particularly John McCain, despise Cruz.  But, they despise Harry Reid more.  In addition, even RINOs can read political polls and it turns out Ted Cruz has struck a chord with the American people.

Finally, even if Cruz loses, he will still win.  The reason he will win is that ObamaCare is a train wreck and nothing is going to change that.  It is fatally flawed, with or without any help from republicans.  Democrats were primarily responsible for the meltdown caused by the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, yet they were successful in blaming this on Bush.  This time, if Republicans stand with Ted Cruz and try to stop ObamaCare, Democrats will own the consequences of ObamaCare lock, stock and barrel.  I am firmly convinced that if ObamaCare is funded that one year from today Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, will be desperately trying to distance themselves from the backlash.

So if Ted Cruz is right and he is able to stop ObamaCare, he wins, the American people win and Obama loses.  Yet if he loses and he is unable to stop ObamaCare, he will ultimately score an even greater victory because the stench of failure will be too powerful to ignore.

I cannot possibly predict how this with turn out, but I do know this.  Obama blinked and we are on the blink of a major change in the political landscape of this country.

TDM

Several years ago I was sitting in the upper deck at the Oakland Coliseum, watching the A’s.  They were losing big time and I was seriously considering an early exit.   Sitting near me was a man, probably about 40, who was attending his first baseball game.   It was obvious that he was mentally disabled.   He was very excited and someone had given him an old baseball glove to take to the game.  I mean we are talking about one of those really old gloves with no web.  It was the kind of baseball glove that players used about 100 years ago.  But apparently he didn’t realize this was an antique, so he just sat there excitedly, wearing that absolutely worthless glove,  waiting for a foul ball.

We were sitting very high up and it was very rare to get foul balls in that section.  But then came the miracle.  We did get a foul ball and it headed right toward this guy.  Unfortunately he didn’t know what to do, so it bounced right next to him and someone else got it.  He was clearly heartbroken and  I thought he was going to cry.  His whole world had been shattered.  He had his chance at glory and he missed.  Then came the real miracle.  On the very next pitch there was another foul ball that landed within a foot of the previous foul ball.  This one was so perfect it literally hit this guy in the glove and he miraculous caught it.  He sat there holding that ball with one of the widest grins I have ever seen.  Next to him was an elderly couple that I finalized realized were his parents.  They were both crying.

Soon everyone in the entire section figured out what had happened and they all jumped up and gave him a standing ovation.  It was one of those precious moments that came at the most unexpected time in the most unexpected way.  This happened many years ago during a meaningless game between two losing teams.  I don’t even remember who the A’s were playing.  But I sure remember that old glove and that very special moment in time.  It is a reminder that no matter how messed up things seem, sometimes God has a gentle way of reminding us who is in control.

TDM

Most students are taught that the Cuban missile crisis was when John F. Kennedy stared down Nikita Khrushchev and prevented World War III.   This is often referred to as Kennedy’s greatest moment.  But the reality is not quite that clear.  The Cuban missile crisis began when the U.S. discovered missiles in Cuba, capable of hitting the U.S. that appeared to have nuclear warheads.   Kennedy ordered the Cuban blockade and after a tense standoff, Khrushchev apparently blinked and agreed to remove those nuclear armed missiles.  Unfortunately the truth is very different from the myth.  Khrushchev won this encounter big time.  As part of the agreement to end the crisis, Kennedy agreed to let Castro rule a communist Cuba without interference from the U.S.  Not only did Kennedy agree to not invade Cuba, he agreed he wouldn’t support anyone else either.  In addition, Kennedy agreed to remove nuclear armed Jupiter Missiles from Italy and Turkey.

In case you question this, here is a copy of a letter Khrushchev wrote to Kennedy:

http://microsites.jfklibrary.org/cmc/oct26/doc4.html

Here is an excerpt from that letter:

Let us therefore show statesmanlike wisdom. I propose: We, for our part, will declare that our ships, bound for Cuba, will not carry any kind of armaments. You would declare that the United States will not invade Cuba with its forces and will not support any sort of forces which might intend to carry out an invasion of Cuba. Then the necessity for the presence of our military specialists in Cuba would disappear.

Khrushchev got more than that.  He also got Kennedy to remove our Jupiter Missile from Turkey:

According to Wikipedia:

The confrontation ended on October 28, 1962,^[7] when Kennedy and United Nations Secretary-General U Thant reached an agreement with Khrushchev. Publicly, the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for a US public declaration and agreement never to invade Cuba. Secretly, the US also agreed that it would dismantle all US-built Jupiter IRBMs, armed with nuclear warheads, which were deployed in Turkey and Italy against the Soviet Union

Now we learn that it was even worse than this, which is pretty bad. It turns out that Castro actually kept some tactical nuclear weapons that Kennedy did not even know existed.  It was Khrushchev who unilaterally disarmed Cuba, because he did not want to risk Castro starting a nuclear war.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/15/cuban-missile-crisis-unto_n_1967544.html

So, in exchange for Khrushchev agreeing to remove nuclear weapons he didn’t even want in Cuba, we gave Castro the green light and withdrew our missiles from Turkey.  In other words, Kennedy got snookered and he knew it.   A bitter and angry Kennedy was determined to find somewhere else to take on international communism.  He found it in South Vietnam, conveniently on the other side of the world.

In the following interview with Chet Huntley, Kennedy explains his plans for Vietnam:

http://dailynightly.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/09/20405441-kennedys-63-pitch-reverberates-in-obamas-action-plan?lite

Kennedy’s die hard supporters pretend that if only Kennedy had lived we might have avoided the Vietnam War.  That may or may not be true, but it is certainly not what Kennedy said in this interview.  It was Kennedy, not Lyndon Johnson, who was determined to make a stand in South Vietnam.

The situation in Syria is déjà vu all over again.  Just like Khrushchev did not want nuclear weapons in Cuba, Putin does not want chemical weapons in Syria.  And, just like Khrushchev wanted Castro to retain power in Cuba, Putin wanted Assad to retain power in Syria.  We still don’t know the final result in Syria, but it sure looks like Putin will get exactly the result he wanted.  We may or may not get rid of chemical weapons in Syria, but Assad is very likely to stay firmly in power.  Any agreement to get rid of WMD is Syria is almost certainly going to require the U.S. to leave Assad in power.

Oba0ma has been humiliated and embarrassed on the international stage.  He has no support from either the liberal left or the conservative right.  He also has no support from the international community.  He ended up accepting a ludicrous proposal from Putin because it was his only option.  He may pretend this is just great diplomacy, but even Obama knows he got snookered.

This creates a very dangerous situation where Obama may be tempted to do something risky and stupid in a desperate attempt to appear relative.  Both Obama and Kerry are starting to talk tough about Iran.  I fear Obama may be desperately looking for his South Vietnam.  Some place where he can at least pretend someone still respects him.

I hope that I am wrong about this, but fear this is pretty accurate.  I hope that those who are secretly rejoicing at the very public humiliation of Barack Obama will keep in mind that when he is humiliated, we are all humiliated.  The Cuban missile crisis was bad enough.  The Vietnam War was much worse.

TDM