It’s not clear what President Obama will do if Congress rejects his request to rain down million-dollar bombs on Assad’s military assets but his gung-ho front man John Kerry talked this week like the US would go boom on Syria regardless of any legislative branch outcomes.
The War Powers Resolution has been trampled on by Presidents before this one. What’s different about Obama’s approach to a Congress he doesn’t like in this instance is that Obama-the-candidate emphatically rejected the notion he would issue unilateral orders for force save an imminent threat to home soil.
Despite that, Obama publicly telegraphed his preferred response to images of carnage outside Damascus and was all set to activate the Tomahawks before the Brits and a war-weary US public put him in a corner. So much for a swiftly-executed, limited mission (a “shot across the bow”) to deter a faraway tyrant from using weapons viewed by the red-liners as somehow more uncivilized than powerful conventional weapons that produce much the same result.
I‘m glad Obama suddenly hit the pause button but the guy fronting his lobbying efforts in Congress is doubling down on the administration‘s case for war. Why is it that this country’s lead “diplomat” John Kerry is doing all heavy lifting at foreign affairs committee hearings while Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel sits there and nods? It’s the Pentagon that carries out these wars. Kerry seems awfully sure this is an easy call. He’s issuing guarantees and confronting opponents of authorization with the threat it’s on them if Assad unleashes more poison.
Among many troublesome aspects of this proposed but seemingly inevitable US military aggression is the disingenuous claim by the Obama administration that it’s taking the consent of the people’s representatives seriously.
The real reason Obama sent the framework of his plan to the Hill for an up or down is because he was out on a limb and didn’t want to stay out there all by himself. That Saturday speech in the Rose Garden felt desperate. Buying time. And oh – by the way, Obama believes he can go to war no matter what Congress ends up doing.
It’s on that point that Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky opened his questioning of Kerry on Tuesday at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
“If we don’t say the constitution applies. It we don’t say explicitly that (the executive branch) will abide by this vote, you’re making a joke of us. You’re making us into theatre and so we play constitutional theatre for the President. If this is real, you will abide by the verdict of Congress. You’re probably gonna win. Just go ahead and say it’s real and let’s have a real debate in this country and not a meaningless debate that in the end (if you lose), you say ‘oh well, we had the authority anyway and we’re gonna go ahead and go to war.’”
As Paul made this statement, Kerry rubbed his cosmetically-enhanced crease-free face while his wife (with even more extreme earmarks of facial surgery) sat behind him. There would be no serious rebuttal from Kerry on Paul’s assertion that the congressional tally in the end is a farce. “The President intends to win this vote,” said Kerry.
A day later, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a measure to authorize military force in Syria. The guy who recently filled the Massachusetts US senate seat vacated by Kerry’s promotion to State had a vote. What did Ed Markey (considered liberal) do when it came time to make his voice heard. He voted “present” which in this case was a gutless expression of not wanting to take a stand.
It was Markey incidentally who referred in the hearings to Syria as a “proxy state of Russia.” If he believes that, how can he not have a position on the subject at hand?
-Francesa’s Sunday morning football-focused radio show returns this weekend with a new name. For more than 25 years, the program has been called the “NFL Now.” Mike says the league has forced him to remove NFL from the title, so starting Sunday he’ll call it Mike Francesa’s Football Sunday.