President Obama Seeks Congressional Approval for Syrian Strike

President Obama discusses the Syrian crisis with his top advisors in the Situation Room of the White House on August 30, 2013.  (White House photo)

The President spoke to reporters in the Rose Garden of the White House this afternoon:




Full text of the President's remarks here.  Speaker John Boehner has announced that the House of Representatives will take up the matter during the week of September 9, after returning from its Labor Day recess.


For the record, as much as your Head Trucker deplores the killing of innocent civilians in Syria, or anywhere, he is still not sure what the right thing to do is, and is glad the decision is not on his shoulders.  It's good that the President will seek the support of Congress on this matter, for moral and constitutional reasons.  One can make a compelling argument on both sides of the issue; but no one can predict with certainty what will result from acting or not acting, or the unintended consequences not yet foreseen. As always, the future is veiled from sight, and only time will tell which is the better choice.

But I will say that I rate the intelligence and integrity of Obama, Biden, and Kerry a helluva lot higher than that of Bush & Co.


Update, 8:50 p.m. - Steve Benen at The Maddow Blog writes about Obama's decision to pull Congress into the mix:

It's one of those terrific examples of good politics and good policy. On the former, the American public clearly endorses the idea of Congress giving its approval before military strikes begin. On the latter, at the risk of putting too fine a point on this, Obama's move away from unilateralism reflects how our constitutional, democratic system of government is supposed to work. . . .

The dirty little secret is that much of Congress was content to have no say in this matter. When a letter circulated demanding the president seek lawmakers' authorization, most of the House and Senate didn't sign it -- some were willing to let Obama do whatever he chose to do, some didn't want the burden of responsibility. Members spent the week complaining about the president not taking Congress' role seriously enough, confident that their rhetoric was just talk.

It spoke to a larger problem: for far too many lawmakers, it's so much easier to criticize than govern. In recent years, members of Congress have too often decided they're little more than powerful pundits, shouting from the sidelines rather than getting in the game.

It's one of the angles to today's news that's so fascinating -- Obama isn't just challenging Congress to play a constructive role in a national security matter, the president is also telling lawmakers to act like adults for a change. They're federal lawmakers in the planet's most powerful government, and maybe now would be a good time to act like grown-ups who are mindful of their duties.

The New Yorker's Amy Davidson writes in "Going to Congress: Obama's Best Syria Decision":

Dropping a few missiles and leaving, which is what the President has in mind, could as easily be an instrument of increased chaos—one of many points that ought to be debated in Congress. A quick strike is something that the Assad regime could put behind it, and sometimes a spectre can be more of a deterrent than a strike. The delay, as frustrating as it might be for some, means at minimum a period of uncertainty for the regime forces. And it pauses what had been a headlong rush to do something—anything that would make us forget those pictures—without thinking the next steps through or caring what happens afterward in Syria. By waiting and deliberating, this becomes, despite all the posturing that will take place, more about the Syrians, and less about our grief-stricken selves.

A couple of other very pertinent articles from the New Yorker are well worth your time:

"Two Minds on Syria"

"The Syrian Question"