Did Nancy Pelosi (and Kerry) read Max Fisher?

Kind of looks like it:

Ms. Pelosi said..that she was hopeful the American people “will be persuaded of” military action. 

“President Obama did not write the red line,” she said. “History wrote the red line decades ago.”

[UPDATE: guess that's the party line: Kerry echoed it in his testimony this afternoon:

Now, some have tried to suggest that the debate we're having today is about President Obama's red line. I could not more forcefully state that is just plain and simply wrong. This debate is about the world's red line. It's about humanity's red line. And it's a red line that anyone with a conscience ought to draw. ][9/5: Obama said the same in Sweden.]

Compare Fisher:

The U.S. decision to move toward possible strikes appears, rightly or wrongly, wisely or unwisely, to be all about reinforcing international norms. It’s not about us; it’s not about “because Obama said so.” It’s about “because international norms say so.”

Syncophants, shills and charlatans at work

Forget for a moment how Chuck Hagel performed at his confirmation hearing today. Consider how the U.S. Senate (as represented by its Armed Services Committee) performed:

Oh, screw it.

What I'd planned here, having listened to selected snatches of the nine-hour malignant clown show, was to extract every craven, grandstanding, litmus test-setting question demanding affirmations of unconditional support for Israel, willingness to supply limitless aid to Israel, retractions of any and all past criticism of Israel. But I can't find a transcript, and the relevant quotes are proving elusive in news stories.  Trust me, the demands of Levin, Gillibrand and Blumenthal, not to say Cruz and Graham, boiled down to this: "Mr. Hagel, if confirmed, how thoroughly and wholeheartedly will you subordinate U.S. interests to Israel's perceived interests?"

In any case, while searching for the questions in questions, I stumbled across a post by Mondoweiss expressing pretty much exactly what I wanted to say:

Hey, maybe the Budget Control Act was a 60-yard punt for Obama after all...

so I wondered when the supercommittee failed and Obama coolly let it:

If you assume that a) Obama wanted a deal that included at least as much in cut spending as the BCA mandates; b) he is willing to live with the large defense cuts if he can't renegotiate them on his own terms; c) he will finally make a firm stand on the Bush tax cuts in 2012, insisting on either a restoration of the Clinton era top marginal rate or tax reform that provides more revenue than just that sunset would yield; and d) once Boehner backed out of the summer deal, a good outcome was impossible without and until Obama's reelection... then maybe he tacked his way to the lowest risk/highest yield strategy available to him.

Now lo, Republicans are loathe to let the ax they rigged let fall, reports Jonathan Weisman: