Chris Matthews:
“Let’s go all the way down to the final stretch here,” Matthews said. “You’ve got [John] Boehner trying to corral enough votes that he can at least dribble out a few of them, and Pelosi stuck with the challenge of a minority caucus where she has to deliver a majority vote. You’re watching Boehner there dribbling out a few votes here and there, as the clock ticks down to zero, and she has to make up the difference. If you have the Hastert Rule in effect, I don’t think you even have this vote, but apparently it won’t be in effect.”
“So you’ll have minority Republican vote, and Pelosi’s going to have to make up the difference with the minority caucus. She’s going to have to come in with a supermajority of Democrats to support their Democratic president. This is a wicked position they have put her in. Maybe she can meet the standard. But I don’t know whether [Chief of Staff Denis] McDonough and the president walking along the south lawn the other day were thinking about the endgame.”
“I think the Democrats are going to be forced to sacrifice men and women who really, really don’t want to vote for this,” Matthews concluded. “They’re going to have to vote for it to save the president’s hide. That’s a bad position to put your party in.”
(video at link)
This will be just awesome come 2014 with big majorities of Americans against this new and highly dangerous military action, with its threats of reigniting a new proxy-based Cold War.
Democrats should NOT vote for this out of some misguided wish to "save" President Obama. Some policy initiatives are just plain bad mistakes, and they should be allowed to die the ignominious death they deserve.