It\u2019s not clear what President Obama will do if Congress rejects his request to rain down million-dollar bombs on Assad\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
The War Powers Resolution<\/a> has been trampled on by Presidents before this one. What\u2019s different about Obama\u2019s approach to a Congress he doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cshot across the bow\u201d) 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.<\/p>\n I\u2018m glad Obama suddenly hit the pause button but the guy fronting his lobbying efforts in Congress is doubling down on the administration\u2018s case for war. Why is it that this country\u2019s lead \u201cdiplomat\u201d John Kerry is doing all heavy lifting at foreign affairs committee hearings while Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel sits there and nods? It\u2019s the Pentagon that carries out these wars. Kerry seems awfully sure this is an easy call. He\u2019s issuing guarantees and confronting opponents of authorization with the threat it\u2019s on them if Assad unleashes more poison.<\/p>\n Among many troublesome aspects of this proposed but seemingly inevitable US military aggression is the disingenuous claim by the Obama administration that it\u2019s taking the consent of the people\u2019s representatives seriously.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t want to stay out there all by himself. That Saturday speech<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n It\u2019s on that point that Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky opened his questioning of Kerry on Tuesday at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we don\u2019t say the constitution applies. It we don\u2019t say explicitly that (the executive branch) will abide by this vote, you\u2019re making a joke of us. You\u2019re 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\u2019re probably gonna win. Just go ahead and say it\u2019s real and let\u2019s have a real debate in this country and not a meaningless debate that in the end (if you lose), you say \u2018oh well, we had the authority anyway and we\u2019re gonna go ahead and go to war.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s assertion that the congressional tally in the end is a farce. \u201cThe President intends to win this vote,\u201d said Kerry.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s promotion to State had a vote. What did Ed Markey (considered liberal) do when it came time to make his voice heard. He voted \u201cpresent\u201d which in this case was a gutless expression of not wanting to take a stand.<\/p>\n It was Markey incidentally who referred in the hearings to Syria as a \u201cproxy state of Russia.\u201d If he believes that, how can he not have a position on the subject at hand?<\/p>\n -Francesa\u2019s Sunday morning football-focused radio show returns this weekend with a new name. For more than 25 years, the program has been called the \u201cNFL Now.\u201d Mike says the league has forced him to remove NFL from the title, so starting Sunday he\u2019ll call it Mike Francesa\u2019s Football Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s not clear what President Obama will do if Congress rejects his request to rain down million-dollar bombs on Assad\u2019s military assets but his gung-ho front man John Kerry talked this week like the US would go boom on Syria … Continue reading