Democratic Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton said Tuesday that at the current time, the only reason she would vote in favor of an attack on Syria was out of loyalty to Barack Obama.
Appearing on radio's Bill Press Show, the non-voting delegate from the District of Columbia also said if the President actually gets the votes he needs, "it’ll be because of loyalty of Democrats. They just don’t want to see him shamed and humiliated on the national stage" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Del. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D-DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA): I happen to believe there has to be a response. I do, I do believe in crimes against humanity need to be addressed, and I am, I can’t believe that the only way to address it is a slight bombing which will somehow punish somebody or deter somebody. I don’t know if there’s some way other than a military way to address this.
BILL PRESS, HOST: You’re kind to join us this morning, Congresswoman. Let me just ask you one final question before we let you go. If, as you said, if the vote were held today, the president would probably not win it. If he doesn’t win it, a week from now, do you think the president will be justified in taking action on his own, you know, unilaterally with Congress having voted against it?
HOLMES NORTON: No, oh boy, no. I think it’ll be like the red line trap. He said if the red line you cross it. I think once you say, "I’m going to Congress," you can’t say, “Okay, I’m going to do it anyway.”
PRESS: Yeah, yeah, I don’t…
HOLMES NORTON: So I think he’ll be in real trouble if he then does it anyway. No president has done that.
PRESS: It’s not an easy decision for any of you, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton.
HOLMES NORTON: Oh, and I’d like to say, Bill, that if he gets saved at all, I think it’ll be because, it’ll be because of loyalty of Democrats. They just don’t want to see him shamed and humiliated on the national stage.
PRESS: Yeah, right.
HOLMES NORTON: At the, at the moment, that’s the only reason I would vote for it if I could vote on it.
Sadly, the Congresswoman might be right.
Sadder still is that this same loyalty to Obama has likely been responsible for the media backing the drumbeat to war, and might cause otherwise anti-war "journalists" to support the President's call for action despite them feeling it's not necessarily in the nation's best interest.
Wouldn't that be ironic after them telling us for almost a decade that George W. Bush got us into Iraq on false pretenses?
(HT Weasel Zippers)
Managing Editor's Note: This post has been updated from earlier to reflect that Holmes Norton is a non-voting delegate from the District of Columbia, not a representative to Congress.
