The New Iran Bill: Better, But Still Risky. Obama Has No Choice But to Accept It.

GREG SARGENT, WASHINGTON POST


Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the leaders on the Foreign Relations Committee, have announced a compromise recasting the Corker-Menendez bill to deal with objections from Senate Democrats. The compromise is an improvement, but it still poses a risk to a final deal with Iran.

The Huffington Post outlines the new Corker-Menendez bill’s key provisions. Here’s the gist:

1) Obama still must submit the final deal to Congress, but the period during which Obama is restricted from lifting sanctions to implement the deal has been cut in half, from 60 days to 30 days. During that period, Congress may vote to approve or disapprove of the final deal. After that, the president has 12 days to veto the bill; and if he does; Congress has another 10 days to override that veto.

Still, as a practical matter, this bill is no more likely to actually stop the deal with Iran than the original version. Under either version, Congress could pass a resolution rejecting the Iran agreement, but Mr. Obama could veto it, meaning he needs to hold onto no more than 34 senators or 146 House members to prevent an override.

Mr. Obama frames it as a nonbinding executive agreement rather than a treaty that would require Senate approval; most agreements with foreign countries in recent decades have been negotiated similarly. But lawmakers argue that this one is too important to go through without their involvement.

resident Obama told female bloggers on Wednesday that he had fewer options left for using his power to bypass Congress. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

2) Under the new framework, the president would certify to Congress every 90 days that Iran is complying with the final deal, but he would no longer have to certify that Iran had not directly supported a terrorist attack targeting an American or American business.

That’s also an improvement. Critics had feared this would introduce another condition that could scuttle a final deal after it is reached and being implemented, even though it is unrelated to Iran’s nuclear program. This also could have caused Iran to walk before a deal was reached.

3) The new framework still preserves the ultimate approve/disapprove Congressional vote on the deal itself, i.e., the vote on whether the president has the authority to temporarily lift sanctions to implement a final deal. (The permanent lifting of sanctions would also require a Congressional vote later, but Congress would probably want to wait on that vote, anyway, to see if Iran is complying.)

The big question is whether this last provision will derail the process before a final deal can be reached.

First, let’s understand what the risk really is here. The problem isn’t necessarily that Congress could end up voting down a deal later. It’s perfectly possible that many Democrats who support Corker-Menendez could ultimately support a final deal. Indeed, that might be easier for them to do after they’ve proved their “toughness” by backing Corker-Menendez. Under this framework, if Congress disapproves of the final deal, restricting Obama’s authority to lift sanctions, and Obama vetoes that, but Congress fails to override that veto, the deal goes forward in the short term anyway. That’s because under this framework, not passing a restriction of Obama’s authority to lift the sanctions is the equivalent of approving that authority. It’s very hard to imagine Democrats — even ones who support Corker-Menendez — helping to override a veto and killing a final deal after it has been reached.

So Corker-Menendez could very well become law, and Congress could still subsequently fail to scuttle a final deal (if it is reached).

Rather, the danger is that a vote now on Corker-Menendez could scuttle the process before a deal is finalized, by sowing fears that Congress ultimately will not allow the president to keep up his end of the bargain. Senator Tim Kaine, a leading supporter of Corker-Menendez who by all appearances really wants a final deal to work, assures us that this isn’t going to happen. He says Iran understands the process here and gets the endgame laid out in the above paragraphs. However, no Corker-Menendez backer has convincingly explained why this vote has to happen now. All of this could almost certainly be structured so Congress could hold its initial vote to create the Corker-Menendez framework on the day the deal is signed, and the outcome from there on out would be procedurally identical.

So the question is, Why risk scuttling the whole process with a vote before a deal is signed, when all the same procedural benefits of Corker-Menendez — including Congressional oversight of the process — could be obtained with a vote later? I still haven’t heard a good answer to that.

Today the White House confirmed that the president will probably sign the new version of Corker-Menendez, provided it doesn’t get worsened by the amendment process, in which Republicans may try to insert additional provisions toughening the conditions on a final deal.

My strong suspicion is that the White House accepted the new framework because it has no choice. Democrats had already predicted that the new Corker-Menendez framework would secure a veto-proof majority. Whether that’s true or not, Congress is going to vote on a final deal one way or the other, so the White House is probably accepting this framework as its best bet.

Congress Can Still Mess Up the Iran Deal

Senator Bob Corker  {Jonathan Ernst/Reuters }

MICHAEL TOMASKY, DAILY BEAST

“Now, Congress takes up the matter” are words that are ensured to send shudders down the spine, so shudder away: We’ve just entered the congressional phase of the Iran talks, with a Senate hearing next Tuesday, after which it’s up to Mitch McConnell to decide how fast and aggressively to move with the bill from Tennessee Republican Bob Corker that would bar the administration from making any changes to U.S. sanctions against Iran for 60 days while Congress reviews and debates any Iran agreement.

There are, as the Dude said, man, a lotta ins, a lotta outs, a lotta what-have-yous here. It’s all quite complicated. But here, it seems to me, is your cut-to-the-chase question: Is there enough good faith in this United States Senate for something to be worked out? Or is it just impossible?

One proceeds from the assumption that the Senate will do whatever it can to kill a deal. It’s a Republican Senate, by a pretty wide margin (54-46); history would suggest that these Republicans simply aren’t going to hand President Obama a win like this. It hardly matters what the details are, about what Iran can or can’t do at Fordow, about the “snapback” provisions of the sanctions, about the inspections regime, or about what precise oversight role Congress has. It’s just basically impossible to imagine that this Republican Party, after everything we’ve seen over these last six years, and this Republican Senate majority leader, who once said it was his job to make Obama a one-term president, won’t throw up every roadblock to a deal they can conjure.



Once again, we’re left separating out the factors the way scientists reduce compounds to their constituent elements in the lab. How much of this is just Obama hatred? How much is (this is a slightly different thing) the conviction—quite insane, but firmly held—that he doesn’t have the best interests of the United States at heart? How much is a genuinely paranoid, McCarthy-ish world view about the intractably evil nature of our enemy and the definitional Chamberlainism of ever thinking otherwise?

And how much is just self-interested politics, as it is bequeathed to us in its current form? Which is to say—if you are a Republican senator, you simply cannot cast a vote that can be seen as “pro-Obama” under any circumstances. You just can’t do it.

I asked in a column last week whether there would be one Republican officeholder in Washington who might say, “Hey, upon examination of the details, this looks like a decent deal with risks that are acceptable, and I’m going to support it?” It’s still a good question.

Some suggest Corker himself. Corker has this reputation, in part earned, as one of the reasonable ones. He gets articles written about him like this one,  from The New York Times a couple of days ago, which limned him as a Republican of the old school, a sensible fellow who still wants to horse-trade.

And he is—but only up to a point, at which the horses return to their stalls. The most notable example here is the Dodd-Frank bill. This is all detailed at great and exacting length by Robert Kaiser in his excellent book about how financial reform became law, Act of Congress. Then, Corker talked for hours and hours with Chris Dodd about the particulars—derivatives reform, oversight of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, more. He wanted to play ball, even thought he might deliver some votes. But as time passed, it became clear to Corker that the base just wasn’t standing for it. He faced reelection in 2012. Not tough reelection—he won with 64 percent of the vote. But reelection campaigns are great excuses for senators to do nothing, and nothing is what Corker did. He withdrew from all participation with Dodd and Frank, and he ultimately voted against the bill.  When it mattered, he caved to the extremists, in other words, among his colleagues and in his base. Why that means he should be getting credit for a spirit of compromise now in New York Times articles is something that, to my obtuse mind, requires further explanation.

Senator Tim Kaine

Happily, though, all is not lost. It’s far from clear that [Rebooblicans] can block a deal. There are, I’m told, three categories of senators on this question. The first is our own mullahs—no deal no how. The second is a group of mostly Democrats and independents—Virginia’s Tim Kaine, who is a close ally of the White House, and Maine’s Angus King—who basically want a deal but want to be sure that it’s good, and want to influence the shape of any legislation the Senate might pass.

The third group is senators who also basically would like to see a deal but want the Senate to serve as a backstop against a deal they see as bad. I’d put Chuck Schumer in that third camp. So when these people say they back the Corker bill, as Schumer did this week, it doesn’t mean they’re against the administration or a deal per se. Democrats aren’t going to be Obama’s problem here. A few, the ones from the deep red states, may be boxed in. But most will stick with the administration, if a deal is finalized along current terms.




I don’t think our mullahs have the numbers right now. [They need a 2/3 majority to override a presidential veto. But Obama is going to have to sell this to more parties than [being interviewed by Tom Friedman and Steve Inskeep of NPR]. He has, or should have, Friedman’s readers and Inskeep’s listeners already. The way to get someone like Corker to play ball is to sell it in Knoxville. Public opinion still influences foreign policy, as Obama knows from his Syrian experiences. Put it to work.

ALL'S NOT QUIET IN THE MID-EAST: U.S. MIL ACTION AGAINST ISIS EXPECTED / CEASE FIRE IN ISRAEL- HAMAS CONFLICT.

As the United States begins mobilizing for possible military action in Syria, rebels on Tuesday were in a war-torn area of Aleppo. Credit Zein Al-Rifai/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images        

The United States has begun to mobilize a broad coalition of allies behind potential American military action in Syria and is moving toward expanded airstrikes in northern Iraq, administration officials said on Tuesday.

President Obama, the officials said, was broadening his campaign against the Sunni militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and nearing a decision to authorize airstrikes and airdrops of food and water around the northern Iraqi town of Amerli, home to members of Iraq’s Turkmen  minority. The town of 12,000 has been under siege for more than two months by the militants.

 

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Islamic State fighters parade in the group’s stronghold of Raqqa in north-eastern Syria. Photograph: Uncredited/AP

The US has [also] begun reconnaissance flights over Syria in preparation for a possible cross-border expansion of its aerial campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq.
The flights, involving both manned aircraft and drones, began on Tuesday, an official confirmed to AP, after they were approved by the US president, Barack Obama, over the weekend.

Obama has been reluctant to take military action in Syria, but the flights are being seen as laying the groundwork for extending US air strikes against Islamic State militants (Isis) into the group's stronghold of Raqqa in north-eastern Syria, where it has been leading the fight against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in a civil war that has killed almost 200,000 people.

On Tuesday, Obama vowed to pursue the killers of American journalist James Foley.
 "Rooting out a cancer like ISIL won't be easy and it won't be quick," he said.
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Steven Senne/Associated Press        

As Mr. Obama considered new strikes, the White House began its diplomatic campaign to enlist allies and neighbors in the region to increase their support for Syria’s moderate opposition and, in some cases, to provide support for possible American military operations. The countries likely to be enlisted include Australia, Britain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, officials said.

Enlisting the Sunni neighbors of Syria is crucial, experts said, because airstrikes alone will not be enough to push back ISIS. The administration, Mr. Ford said, needs to pursue a sequential strategy that begins with gathering intelligence, followed by targeted airstrikes, more robust and better coordinated support for the moderate rebels, and finally, a political reconciliation process similar to that underway in Iraq.

 

Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat, recently wrote an opinion article declaring that the president needed congressional authorization for military action in Iraq. Credit Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images        

 The White House is also debating how to satisfy a second constituency, Congress. Mr. Obama’s advisers are considering whether to seek congressional authorization for expanded military action and if so, under what legal rationale. Lawmakers had been reluctant to vote on airstrikes in Iraq, but several have begun arguing that the broader action being contemplated by Mr. Obama would demand a vote in Congress.

 

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A San Diego native fighting for ISIS in Syria was killed over the weekend, according to the Free Syrian Army. NBC News reported Tuesday that a passport and tattoo positively identified the body as that of Douglas McArthur McCain, 33. Calling himself “Duale ThaslaveofAllah” on Facebook and Twitter, he declared “It’s Islam over everything.” In 2004, McCain “reverted” to Islam, according to his Twitter. “I’m with the brothers now,” he tweeted on June 9.

McCain was once an aspiring rapper in a blue-collar Minnesota neighborhood. His high school classmates described him as a "goofball" and "always smiling." He had multiple run-ins with police and was convicted of obstruction and disorderly conduct. McCain started school at San Diego City College and worked at a Somali restuarant in the city. “He was a normal guy, who was social, open-minded, like to smile always, and always wanted to be a good Muslim," said a person who knew him from the restaurant.
McArthur actively tweeted, and his messages ranged from homophobic hate to just plane stupid.  In December 2012, he tweeted "Wallahi I wants fried chicken." However, his account went silent in January 2013 until spring of this year. McCain appears to have gone to Turkey, which is a popular jihadi route to Syria. McAuthur is among hundreds of Westerns believed to have joined ISIS's war in Syria and Iraq, like Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, the British man suspected of beheading of James Foley.

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A Hamas militant fired into the air in Gaza City on Tuesday to celebrate a cease-fire that will open border crossings for aid and reconstruction supplies. Credit Roberto Schmidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images        

After 50 days of fighting that took some 2,200 lives, leveled large areas of the Gaza Strip and paralyzed Israel’s south for the summer, Israeli and Palestinian leaders reached an open-ended cease-fire agreement on Tuesday that promised only limited change to conditions in Gaza and left unresolved the broader issues underpinning the conflict.

Hamas, the militant Islamist faction that dominates Gaza, declared victory even though it had abandoned most of its demands, ultimately accepting an Egyptian-brokered deal that differs little from one proffered on the battle’s seventh day. In effect, the deal put both sides back where they were at the end of eight days of fighting in 2012, with terms that called for easing but not lifting Israeli restrictions on travel, trade and fishing in Gaza.

 

In Israel, continual barrages of rocket fire and fears about starting school on Monday without a cease-fire had increased pressure on the government from citizens exhausted by what had become a war of attrition. Yuval Steinitz, a senior Israeli minister, said in a television interview Tuesday night that he accepted the cease-fire “with a sour taste of missed opportunity.”

 

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations welcomed the cease-fire but said in a statement, “The blockade of Gaza must end; Israel’s legitimate security concerns must be addressed.” He warned, “Any peace effort that does not tackle the root causes of the crisis will do little more than set the stage for the next cycle of violence.”

 

In Israel, support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s performance dropped by more than half this weekend from a high of more than eight in 10 Israeli Jews in the battle’s early days, according to polls conducted for Channel 2 News. Israel’s central bank cut interest rates on Monday to their lowest level ever to counter economic fallout, and Mr. Netanyahu has lashed out in recent days against senior ministers critical of the campaign, which commentators and politicians have increasingly argued was ill conceived.

 

Israel achieved its original stated goal, to restore quiet, but Hamas’s repeated penetration of Israeli territory through tunnels, the deaths of the most Israeli soldiers since the 2006 Lebanon war, and the killing on Friday of 4-year-old Daniel Tregerman in a kibbutz near Gaza have scarred the country’s psyche.

 

Israeli analysts said that since 1973, no prime minister has emerged from a war unscathed. Yehuda Ben Meir, an expert on public opinion at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, cautioned that it was too early to assess the outcome of the campaign.

 

 

WHO SAID THE TEA PARTY IS OVER? ERIC CANTOR LOSES TO TEA PARTY UNKNOWN.

MICHAEL TOMASKY, DAILY BEAST

Here’s the thing: Eric Cantor did not fall asleep in this race. He spent around $5 million. He ran lots of TV ads. He knew this was going to be a close one. He campaigned. And he still got creamed. [ Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his GOP primary Tuesday to a poorly funded and disorganized Tea Party activist. David Brat, an economics professor at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., beat Cantor by 12 points when the Associated Press called the race shortly after 8 p.m. Cantor served as the congressman from Virginia's 7th district since 2001 and as the leader of House Republicans since 2011. Brat repeatedly criticized Cantor for being soft on immigration and contending that he supported what critics call amnesty for immigrants in the country illegally.]

And here’s the other thing: Cantor was not an enemy of the Tea Party. He was in fact the Tea Party’s guy in the leadership for much of the Barack Obama era. He carried the tea into the speaker’s office. And still he got creamed.

Creamed! Has a party leader ever lost a primary like this? Stop and take this in. Like any political journalist, I’m a little bit of a historian of this sort of thing, although I readily admit my knowledge isn’t encyclopedic. But I sure can’t think of anything. Tom Foley, the Democratic House speaker in the early 1990s, lost reelection while he was speaker, but that was in the general [election], to a Republican, which is a whole different ballgame. And he was the first sitting speaker to lose an election since…get this…1862! But a primary? The No. 2 man in the House, losing a primary?

So what happened here? Obviously, first, it’s about immigration. That was David Brat’s whole campaign: Cantor was a liberal who supported a path to citizenship for the swarthy illegals. (He didn’t say that, of course, at least the swarthy part.) Immigration reform is D-E-A-D. There is no chance the House will touch it. That means it’s dead for this Congress, which means that next Congress, the Senate would have to take the lead in passing it again. (The Senate’s passage of the current bill expires when this Congress ends.) And the Senate isn’t going to touch it in the next Congress, even if the Democrats hold on to the majority. Those handful of Republicans who backed reform last year will be terrified to do so. And it’s difficult to say when immigration reform might have another shot. Maybe the first two years of President Clinton’s second term. Maybe.

Chris McDaniel

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call, via Getty

Second, the reports of the Tea Party’s death are…well, you know. Cantor’s loss is a huge disruption of the narrative that the Republican establishment had taken control this year. And throw in the coming Chris McDaniel-Thad Cochran runoff in the Mississippi Senate race, which many now expect Tea Partier McDaniel to win, and you have a narrative in which the Tea Party can say, “We’re still calling the shots.” Cantor also has spent the past couple of years talking about education, which, any Tea Party person knows, is code for black, city, unions. Other Republicans in the House won’t miss that message, and they won’t try to carve out any “interesting” legislative profiles for themselves.

Third, what does it mean for the country? Hard to say yet, but bad, surely. The House GOP wasn’t exactly ready to start cutting deals with Obama even with Cantor in the leadership. Now that he’s been beaten by a right-winger…no one, not a single Republican in the House will take a chance on anything. The legislative process, already shut down, will only be more so.

And Brat himself [above], fourth, is a star overnight. I’d hate to be his booker or scheduler. His Wednesday is going to be a roller-coaster ride from Rush Limbaugh to Fox to Laura Ingraham to who knows what. He is a hero to these people. Remember how Scott Brown attained wattage in 2009 by beating Democrat Martha Coakley in Massachusetts? Brown was a major star then. Brat is going to make Brown look like a nameless session guitar player.
I’m sure there’s ramification five, six, seven, and eight that I’m not even thinking of right now. We’ll see. But this is an earthquake. One of the most shocking electoral nights in American history. Did I really say that? I did. It’s true.

=================================================
N.Y. Times:
Representative Cantor resigned as majority leader Wednesday, completing a precipitous fall after his stunning loss in a primary and setting off an internal battle to remake the upper ranks of House leadership.....Republicans set leadership elections for next Thursday, and by stepping down as majority leader quickly, Mr. Cantor hoped to limit a festering struggle within the House Republican conference over who would assume his post, a feud likely to push an already conservative Republican House leadership further to the right and embolden the chamber’s most stubborn conservatives who have long chafed at what they saw as an accommodating leadership.
Mr. Cantor quickly threw his support behind his “dear friend and colleague,” Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the majority whip, the No. 3 leadership position. But Representative Pete Sessions of Texas said he would seek the majority leader’s spot and would make border security — not immigration reform — his primary focus.

DEMS FACE UPHILL BATTLE IN MID-TERM ELECTIONS

WASHINGTON POST

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As elections become increasingly nationalized, with outside spenders infiltrating local airwaves with ads often aiming their rage at the White House far more than the candidate they're supposed to be bashing, voters increasingly substitute their opinions about the president for their opinions about the rest of American government. This election cycle (and the two election cycles that proceeded it) feature Republicans trying to nationalize the midterms by connecting Democratic legislators in vulnerable districts to Obamacare, the health-care law that conveniently shares the president's name. The polling so far seems to show that 2014 is bound to be just as much about national politics as 2010 -- if not more.

Forty-eight percent of respondents to the NBC/WSJ poll this week say they are less likely to support a candidate who supports the Obama administration. In 1994, 35 percent of people thought a representative's record on national issues was more important then their handling of issues in the district. This week, 44 percent of people believe national issues are a more important test for candidates.

 In 2014, Democrats are trying to fight back with their own spin on nationalizing the election. There are traditionally few options for the party in power to nationalize an election in a way that benefits them. Trying to smear legislators from the opposite party writ large is like trying to scare voters with a giant marshmallow. It's hard to vote against an institution that doesn't have a single face. Americans have decided that Congress is a very bad thing, while simultaneously thinking very fond things about their representative or senator. Congressional approval ratings — which have been dismal for years — barely affect elections at all.

 


Democrats need a national villain that isn't in Congress, but is affiliated with Congress, in the same way that minority parties have connected presidents to the actions of individual legislators. Right now, Democrats are experimenting with the Koch brothers. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is rolling out a campaign claiming that the GOP is "addicted to Koch," launching ads in states where Americans for Prosperity have already sunk millions, like Alaska.
Even if the play works, Democrats are still at a disadvantage. During midterms, history shows us that Republicans are more likely to vote than Democrats. The Republican Party is older and whiter, and older and whiter people are more likely to turnout in the ugly duckling of election cycles. Everyone else mostly tunes out without a sexy presidential race to focus on.

Charles and David Koch

In primaries and midterms, always notorious for low turnout, the voters most invested in changing the political landscape are also more likely to prioritize casting a ballot. Supporters of the party in power are more likely to be apathetically supportive of the status quo. According to Gallup, 79 percent of Democrats supported Obama In February, and that likely translates into lazy support for other political offices. Only 10 percent of Republicans support Obama. If that distaste holds until November, they'll have more of a reason to vote. That's more bad news for Democrats in 2014.
The president's party nearly always loses House seats during midterms anyway, barring national tragedy or a phenomenally robust economy.

Contrast that with the still sluggish economy, and it's clear it doesn't matter which poll accurately captures Obama's approval rating. Democrats are facing an uphill battle regardless. But -- silver lining -- it's hardly possible for Democrats to do much worse than they did in 2010, when Obama had an approval rating of 47 percent, according to NBC and the Wall Street Journal.
Also important to note: dwindling approval ratings are not the sole province of Obama. When George W. Bush was in the same point in his presidency, his Gallup approval rating was 36 percent. Nixon's was 26 percent. LBJ's was 49 percent. Truman's was 37 percent. And if Obama's doesn't improve between now and November, he's just following precedent. Only one president since the 1950s — Eisenhower in 1958 — had his job approval rise by more than three percentage points from March to October of a midterm year. Six presidents have seen nasty declines, ranging from four to 18 points.

.... Obama has kept a safe distance from Democratic candidates who are worried that their election returns might have an inverse relationship to how involved the president is during the campaign. He'll keep fundraising — that's one thing he's always been better at than everyone else — and will keep pushing his economic equality agenda. Both of these things could reap quiet and much needed benefits for Democrats this weekend, and maybe help Obama's approval and legacy in the end, too.

Tough Work for Obama to Win Votes for Strike Against Syria.

GREG SARGENT WASHINGTON POST

If you look at the various whip counts floating around on where the House is on the Syria resolution, it certainly looks like it could very well go down. They mostly show there are far more Members against strikes or leaning against them than have declared support for them.
But it may be premature to count out the possibility that it could still pass, for a number of key reasons.
This post will focus mostly on the state of play among House Democrats, since it’s very hard to say right now what’s going on with Republicans, because we can’t be sure how many will ultimately vote No solely to stick it to the President.
After talking to House Dem aides, here is their view of the factors that really matter right now:

Please Note: this is based on aides who want to find a way to get to Yes, so factor that into your evaluation of the below. The goal is to portray how this is viewed by them.

1) President Obama will give a national address Tuesday night. He will give interviews on Monday to the three network news anchors, as well as to anchors from PBS, CNN, and Fox, more evidence of a "full court press" strategy ahead of pivotal congressional votes on military strikes in Syria.
2) The majority of Members still have not gotten a classified briefing, sources tell me. Aides say this will change next week, on Monday, when Members are set to be briefed en masse by White House officials....

 3) The real state of play is not what it seems. Aides believe that many of those who say they are leaning No are not necessarily at that point. Aides believe there’s a lot of pressure on Dems — given the unpopularity of strikes with constituents, as reflected in the polls, and given some of the pressure being directed to offices by liberal groups — to downplay the possibility of a Yes vote later. So aides think the whip counts don’t tell the real story.

4) There are sizable blocs of Dems who can still get to yes. Dem aides believe they probably need around 120-130 Dems for the resolution to pass, because they think they’ll get around 90-100 Republicans (with most voting No). They think that they can get there. This would draw on Yes votes from 40 or so hawkish, interventionist Dems types who will be persuadable by groups like AIPAC; plus a sizable bloc of moderate Dems who aren’t too worried about the Dem base and will be genuinely gettable; plus some more votes drawn from around several dozen hard-to-classify Dems who are more focused on domestic affairs. Dem aides think they can get the numbers they need even if around 60 progressive Dems prove ungettable.

To be clear, there’s no question the White House still faces a very tough road ahead. [See below} As I noted here earlier, it’s not clear the White House will be able to successfully address the concerns of those who simply don’t accept the underlying premise of Obama’s argument. The resolution absolutely could still go down. But the view from some on the inside is that it still has a decent chance.

E.J. Dionne makes the case that a coalition of reluctant Democrats, skeptical-but-responsible Republicans, and hawkish GOP interventionists could still put a vote over the top:

Ultimately, after intricate negotiations, the balance of power among all these factions will almost certainly give the president the congressional victory he needs to take action — in part because majorities in both houses know that an Obama defeat on Syria would be devastating to American foreign policy.

Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, and Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee,

GREG SARGENT WASHINGTON POST

CONSTITUENTS GIVING CONGRESS EARFUL ABOUT SYRIA: The Post details that multiple members of Congress say they are getting strong pushback from constituents who want them to oppose any strike on Syria. The key point here is that this gives Members a strong incentive to say they are currently leaning against supporting a use-of-force resolution.
What still remains to be seen is whether the White House can persuade them — perhaps with more classified briefings — that the underlying rationale for strikes is so compelling that they should buck their own constituents. It’s going to be an uphill climb, to be sure.

CHRIS CILLIZZA WASHINGTON POST

Perhaps just as important as all the phone calls from the opposition, these anecdotes all suggest that there is very little in the way of a counterbalance — i.e. people vocally urging their members to vote ‘yes.’
The takeaway message for all these members of Congress, then, is that voting “yes” will win you very few political friends, but voting “no” will alienate a whole bunch of people who are passionate, able and willing to make your phone ring off the hook. For your average risk-averse politician, that matters.
The polls make clear that taking action in Syria is not popular among really any segment of the population, but even the margins in those polls under-sell the vehemence of the opposition. And in politics, enthusiasm can mean just as much as (or more than) general sentiment.
As of now, there are very few in the House who are committed to supporting military action (24 out of 435 members). And given nearly half of the House is either against military action or skeptical, the White House needs to bring basically all of the purely undecided members on-board.

A House vote is likely the week of Sept. 16.

GREG SARGENT WASHINGTON POST  (Cont'd)

[But] For the reasons I mentioned yesterday, I continue to think it’s premature to predict certain defeat in the House for the use-of-force resolution against Syria. ABC News’s Rick Klein seems to agree, noting that a very hard sell from the White House — which you can expect will be directed at Congress — could ultimately prevail, even though right now the votes just aren’t there.
But it’s not too early to make the case that if Congress does sink the resolution, Obama should heed it. And he probably will.
Peter Baker has a must-read getting inside the thinking of the White House, which is looking at the coming Syria vote as a test of whether Congress will support any proposed use of force during the rest of his presidency. Paradoxically, this gives Obama a good reason not to act on Syria if Congress says No:

Although Mr. Obama has asserted that he has the authority to order the strike on Syria even if Congress says no, White House aides consider that almost unthinkable. As a practical matter, it would leave him more isolated than ever and seemingly in defiance of the public’s will at home. As a political matter, it would almost surely set off an effort in the House to impeach him, which even if it went nowhere could be distracting and draining.

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If Congress does say No, and if Obama listens ...it will set in motion a very interesting experiment. The roar of Obama-is-weak punditry — casting Obama as a lame duck who can’t get Congress to do anything, with grave consequences for the rest of his agenda –  will be deafening, with few willing to point out that heeding Congress’ word is the right thing to do for the country....

GREG SARGENT WASHINGTON POST

.... Commentators will widely argue that this shows the president is a badly weakened lame duck who can’t bend Congress to his will, putting his second term agenda in further doubt.
It’s worth distinguishing between how Congress will view such an outcome and how the public might view it.

If Congress says No, and Obama announces that he will abide by the vote — arguing that the people have spoken, that democracy and the rule of law will prevail, and that our country will be stronger for it — then it’s very possible that the Dem base will rally behind him. Remember, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and other liberal groups strongly supported Obama’s decision to go to Congress, even though they oppose his proposal to attack Syria. If Obama heeds Congress, the liberal base — and liberal lawmakers — would likely have Obama’s back. Independents, who have tilted strongly against an attack, might be supportive, too.

And so, several questions for the political science egghead types and anyone else who cares to answer. Do voters really perceive situations like these in the same terms pundits and Congressional lawmakers do, i.e., in terms of what they tell us about presidential strength or weakness? Do voters really expect presidents to bend Congress to their will, or do they see Congress as its own animal and don’t hold presidents accountable for its behavior?...



Larry Summers


OTHER NEWS FROM DC

* DEMS TO OPPOSE SUMMERS FOR FED CHAIR: The Wall Street Journal scoops that three key Dems on the Senate Banking Committee will vote No if Obama nominates Larry Summers for Fed chair: Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, and Jeff Merkley. A source familiar with Brown’s thinking confirms to me he’s a No.
Since Dems only hold a two-vote majority on the committee, that would mean Obama would need GOP support to get him to the full Senate, which, given recent history, seems unlikely — even though Fed chair picks are traditionally given wide bipartisan support. I’ve long thought a Summers pick all but guarantees Obama a big public fight with Senate Dems representing the liberal wing of the party. It’s now clear he’d get one.