The unofficial whip count list on Syria is fascinating in political terms.  The issue with the Republicans may be how hard the House leadership tries to whip members into line. Republican leaders are in a position in which they at least have to pay lip service to Obama simply because of the longstanding Republican position that politics should stop at the water's edge once a President, any president, commits to a plan of action.  My guess is they won't press very hard to line up votes. The Democrats have a far more complex political problem.  There exists a huge block of members who were elected at least in part because they professed pacifism in principle when now it seems that all they really were was anti-Bush.  But many of their supporters probably took them at their word in the progressive strongholds across the nation.  What to make of militant progressives such as Keith Ellison (D-Minn.)  and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill)  who are now said to...(Read Full Post)