NOVANEWS
politico.com
Republicans on the Hill may be divided on whether to approve military action in Syria, but many influential conservative radio hosts around the country said Tuesday they’ll use the airwaves this week to make one point clear to Congress — stay out of the conflict.
Now that President Barack Obama has turned to Congress to authorize a use of force in Syria, conservative talkers plan to strongly advocate for lawmakers to resoundingly vote no on the Syria question.
“Rarely have I ever witnessed such consensus from my audience that we should stay the heck out of Syria,” nationally-syndicated conservative talker Mike Gallagher told POLITICO. “Even liberal callers who usually challenge and criticize me say we should not intervene. I am delighted that the president has done this about-face and will now turn to congress for approval. Now it’s up to the Congress to do the right thing and deliver a big, fat ‘no.’”
Dana Loesch, who hosts the daily conservative radio program “The Dana Show,” said she is personally opposed to intervention in Syria. As Congress debates the situation, she said, members should seriously consider the greater threat posed from military action in Syria “and the further provocation of countries already on ‘frenemy’ status with the US.”
“This has every potential to develop into more than intervention in a civil battle over a country’s control,” the St. Louis, Missouri-based radio talker said in an email. “President Obama did not help the situation when drew his red line over how the Al Qaeda-aligned rebels and the Hezbollah-backed Assad regime were fighting each other. It was an unnecessary threat that cost us any element of surprise and our reputation under this administration for failed expectations. It’s mind blowing that we are now considering joining a civil war on the side of a group we’ve fought a ‘war on terror’ against for the past decade.
“It would have been better for him to say nothing beyond ‘We are saddened by the reports of those dying from gas attacks and are monitoring the situation,’” she added. “Instead, this is Obama’s Iraq.”
Rush Limbaugh, meanwhile, told his listeners Tuesday that Obama’s decision was part of the president’s plan to “announce that he’s going to go to Congress to get a use of force authorization and then when the Republicans don’t give it to him, blame them for dead Syrians.” And the Syria question, he said, just comes down to politics for Obama.
“I get into arguments with people about this who still do not understand that no matter what the issue, no matter what day of the week, the either No. 1 or No. 2 objective in the world of Barack Obama is the elimination of any opposition,” Limbaugh said. “You cannot take the 2014 midterm elections out of this equation. You cannot remove from this equation just how desperate the Democrats are to win the House in 2014, anything that can be done to blame the Republicans.”
SiriusXM’s David Webb said his message to Congress is simple: “When it comes to Syria, don’t go.”
“What we have are al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood, Assad’s forces, the Free Syrian Army — they’re all fighting each other for power,” Webb, a tea party activist, said in an interview. “It’s what they do with that power, whoever gets it afterwards, that should really trouble us. So let them kill each other.”
The radio host and Fox News contributor added that “war talk is a great distraction for any president,” noting the situation in Syria has diverted attention from the budget, Obamacare and other pressing issues that Congress should be focusing on instead.
Fellow SiriusXM Radio host Andrew Wilkow, meanwhile, said he wondered how Congress could even try to justify approving military action in Syria to the American people.
“There’s no event to tie this potential strike to. Nothing,” Wilkow, who also hosts a one-hour nightly show Wilkow! on TheBlaze TV, said in an interview. “There’s no Zimmerman [Telegram], no Pearl Harbor, no 38th parallel, we don’t even have a domino theory, and there’s certainly no 9/11. So what is it that you are going to hold up in front of this country to justify going into another war after the president and his political party opposed just about everything George W. Bush did even, when they originally voted for it?”
As for how Republican members of Congress will eventually vote on the Syria question, Wilkow said the divide is already clear.
“If you’ve got a subscription to The Weekly Standard, you’ll be for it. If you’ve got a subscription to Reason, you won’t be for it,” the SiriusXM Patriot host said. “If you’re in the Bill Kristol camp, you’re for it. If you’re in the Nick Gillespie camp, you’re not. I would put myself in the Nick Gillespie camp.”
And the grassroots elements of both parties will be opposing the establishment members when it comes time to cast a vote, Wilkow predicted.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee knocked the “erratic and mixed messages” that have characterized the administration’s statements on Syria. The actions of the United States thus far, he said, have been “incoherent and incompetent.”
“I’m glad that the President finally realizes there is another branch of government that might be useful to consult, but the erratic and mixed messages are indicative of the fact that we have no real policy or plan,” he told POLITICO in a statement. “While it might make the President feel good to kick some sand in Assad’s face, the question is, ‘what is the end game?’ Are we poking the cub (Assad) and waking up the Mama Bear (Iran)?”
