IF THE PARTY LABELS WERE REVERSED

I don't have to tell you what would be happening right now if a Republican president were in the White House: All Republicans would be rallying around the president and praising his foreign policy acuity, the press would concur, and Democrats would be quietly supportive of the president because they'd see that as the only appropriate response in the immediate aftermath of a destabilizing flare-up. But we have a Democratic president, of course, and what's happening is equally predictable: Republicans are tripping over one another to see who can score the most partisan political points, the "liberal media" is piling on, and there are the usual sightings of Democrats looking to form a circular firing squad:

... Delaware Sen. Chris Coons (who's up for re-election this year but lacks a credible challenger) joined former Sen. Joe Lieberman and former Shin Bet head Avi Dichter for a discussion of foreign policy [yesterday at the AIPAC Policy Conference]. It was Coons, a Democrat who holds the seat formerly filled by Joe Biden, who suggested that the Obama administration had shown weakness and invited new threats.

On Africa: "I frankly think we've lost some ground in the region because our vital allies don't believe that the United States has the will, the determination, the courage to act, after a red line was drawn, was crossed, and we didn't act in Syria."

On Ukraine: "I frankly this is partly a result of our perceived weakness, because of our actions in Syria."

Which reminds me: You know what else isn't happening that would be happening if the party labels were reversed? Republicans aren't getting any blame for this crisis. Remember how Republicans balked when the president wanted to attack Syria in response to Syria's use of chemical weapons? Can you imagine what would be happening right now if Democrats in Congress had prevented President Romney from bombing a key Russian ally, after which Putin did what he's now doing? A large amount of the blame would be heaped on the sandal-wearing peacenik America-hater Dems who'd prevented a true patriot from doing what was in the vital interests of the United States; it would be said that Romney wanted to stand tall, but Democratic traitors made that impossible.

But it was Republicans who were the peaceniks this time, so no problem.