Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax's Christopher Ruddy has a troubling (if you're a conservative) tendency to put principle ahead of right-wing ideology -- see his befriending of onetime nemesis Bill Clinton or, earlier this year, his defense of moderate Republican Susan Collins.
Ruddy is at it again in his Sept. 9 Newsmax column in which he agrees with President Obama's intervention in Syria:
Usually I write an article and then, in summation, offer the “bottom line” – the call to action.
So here is that bottom line to start: Congress should back President Obama’s plan to strike Syria.
But I offer one caveat. When the commander in chief speaks to the nation on Tuesday, he needs to offer clear and compelling evidence that the Assad regime, and no one else, used chemical weapons.
Polls show overwhelming opposition to the military strike. I believe a key reason for this is that the administration has not offered a smoking gun for the public, evidence that the Assad regime indeed used such weapons of mass destruction.
The president should follow the example of President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1962, President Kennedy addressed the nation, showing photographic evidence of Russian missiles just 90 miles from our shores – informing the Soviets they had crossed a red line unacceptable to the United States. The Russians had to remove the missiles and stop delivery of missiles, even if it meant war.
If President Obama can draw a page from President Kennedy in persuading the American people by offering solid evidence, he then deserves the legal authority to strike Syria in a punitive action.
Ruddy also engages in a little revisionist history:
I realize it is not popular to support President Obama and a strike on Syria.
But when I founded Newsmax back in 1998, I did so on the basis this media enterprise would always support the sovereignty and security of our nation.
Since then, we have had differences with both President Bush’s and President Obama’s policies, but the security of the nation remains paramount.
Funny, we thought the reason he founded Newsmax was to attack the Clinton administration.
