Jonathan Bernstein is correct that the difficulty Congress is having authorizing force against Syria is a sign of the strength of the two parties rather than a sign of their weaknesses. Specifically, it’s a sign that lawmakers on the Democratic side are afraid of crossing the antiwar sentiments of their party faithful and that, on the Republican side, lawmakers are afraid of crossing the anti-Obama sentiments of their party faithful. Alexander Burns and John Harris are looking at the party leaders and noticing that they aren’t being obeyed. Obama, Reid, and Pelosi, and Boehner and Cantor are trying to lead but many are not following. This is a sign that the parties are so rigidly aligned that they have difficulty moving away from their orthodoxies. That there are not more cross-over votes is an indication of the power of the parties’ branding and not a sign that parties no longer have control.
Some of this depends on how you define a political party. If you define them by their leadership then they might look weak. But if you define them by the influence of their members on their leadership, the parties have never looked stronger.
I also think that the case for using force against Syria has not been convincing both because the evidence of Syrian culpability hasn’t been 100% compelling and because the plan of attack leaves many people scratching their heads. So, one reason the vote is facing problems is simply that there are many grounds for opposing the use of force regardless of where you are on the ideological spectrum.
With the Russians stepping in yesterday, the deck has been reshuffled, and it will take a couple of days for Washington to shake off the old debate and begin to engage the new reality.
