- The Washington Times - Monday, April 10, 2017

My, how President Donald Trump’s strike on Syria has brought out the left’s most notables to give sound rounds of applause.

And shouldn’t that be a red flag, in and of itself?

Anything that goes like this — “And on one side, you’ve got Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Chuck Schumer and CNN … and on the other —” is bad news. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you don’t even have to know what the issue is. You can just assume: Bad news.

Kerry, secretary of state under Barack Obama, said he was “absolutely supportive” of the strike, and “gratified to see that it happened quickly.” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said the “strike in Syria appears to be in proportional response to the regime’s use of chemical weapons.” Senate Minority Leader Schumer said “making sure [Bashar] Assad knows that when he commits such despicable atrocities he will pay the price is the right thing to do.” CNN’s Fareed Zakaria said, one day after the strikes, “I think Donald Trump became president of the United States.”

The common denominator of these newbie Trump fans? They all hated Trump, up until the strike. And not just a quiet, seething, keep-it-to-yourself type of hatred. No, they detested with an outspoken, get-him-out-of-office now rhetoric. But suddenly, fans?

Seriously, last time Democrats came out this strong on an issue with Republicans, they were singing “God Bless America” on the steps of the Capitol, post-September 11, 2001.

And it’s not only key Democrats who’ve flocked to the Trump camp over Syria — it’s the likes of Sens. John McCain and Marco Rubio. The RINOs. The elitists and establishment — the very same Trump vowed to drain from D.C. while he was campaigning, while he was preparing for inauguration and while he was taking over the high office.

Likely, the Dems love the fact that Trump was caught in a major flip-flop. In 2013, for instance, Trump said pretty clearly the then-president would need congressional approval to strike on Syria and that U.S. military action would only bring on “more debt and a possible long term conflict.” McCain, meanwhile? He just loves anything that dings Russia.

Now retired generals are coming out in force to support Trump and his Syria strike. But this is where the American people really need to think for themselves.

And aside from the curious — no, upsetting — connection among Trump, the far left, RINOs and Syria that now exists, here’s another question to poke a hole in the reasons to strike: Supposedly, intelligence was 100 percent — heck, 110 percent — accurate that President Bashar Assad was the responsible party for the chemical weapon assault on his own people.

But isn’t this the same intel community that Trump, for months now, has condemned and criticized as politically corrupted?

Yet in one fell swoop, they’re not — they’re to be believed?

Doesn’t make sense.

Now Clinton is out making a case for Trump to use his horror at the dead Syrian children and turn it into horror at the plight of refugees — and open borders.

Trump, on the photographs of dead kids that circulated in the media after the chemical attack in Syria, said it was a crossed line, so to speak.

“When you kill innocent children, innocent babies … with a chemical gas that is so lethal,” he said, in the leadup to his announced missile strike, “that crosses many, many lines.”

And Clinton, shortly after Trump’s ordered strike?

“The action taken [in Syria] needs to be followed by a broader strategy to end Syria’s civil war, and to eliminate ISIS’s stronghold on both sides of the border,” Clinton said, at a recent Texas speech, Cosmopolitan reported. “So I hope this administration will move forward in a way that is both strategic and consistent with our values and I also hope that they will recognize that we cannot in one breath speak of protecting Syria’s babies and in the next, close America’s doors to them.”

That’s just great. And honestly, in a match-up between Clinton and Trump over who seems more consistent in stated policy right now, the ribbon has to go with the liar on the left, Clinton. She’s right: If you make a case for intervening with military force based on horrific images of dead children, you open the doors to justifying all kinds of policy based on the humanitarian rights of the child. Let’s just hope the media doesn’t start flooding the Internet and airwaves with images of dying and suffering refugee children — and that these photographs lead to a change in administration border control.

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