September 9, 2013
from
WashingtonsBlog Website
Obama Ramps Up War Pitch Even As Basic Arguments Fall by
the Wayside
Obama is going on a
whirlwind media blitz this week in an
attempt to sell a very skeptical public on war with Syria.
Yet the Washington Post
notes:
Obama’s top aide says the administration
lacks “irrefutable,
beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence” that skeptical
Americans, including lawmakers who will start voting on military action
this week, are seeking.
Indeed, those who have seen the evidence say
that
it is incredibly weak. German
intelligence also says that
Assad didn’t order the attacks.
Moreover, President Obama correctly noted
in 2007:
The President does not have the power under
the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a
situation that does not involve stopping an
actual or imminent threat to the nation.
Yet Obama
admitted last week:
Some people had noted, and I think this is
true, that had I been in the Senate in the midst of this period, I
probably would have suggested to a Democratic or a Republican president
that Congress should have the ability to weigh in
an issue like this, that is not
immediate, imminent, time-sensitive.
***
We
may not be directly, imminently threatened by what’s taking place in…
Syria… in the short term, but
our long-term national security will be impacted in a profound way, and
our humanity is impacted in a profound way.
No wonder that Obama has lost some of his
biggest initial supporters for a strike against Syria.
Reuters
notes:
White House efforts to convince the U.S.
Congress to back military action against Syria are not only failing,
they seem to be stiffening the opposition.
That was the assessment on Sunday, not of an
opponent but of an early and ardent Republican supporter of Obama’s plan
for attacking Syria, the influential Republican chairman of the House
intelligence committee, Mike Rogers.
Rogers told CBS’s “Face the Nation” the
White House had made a “confusing mess” of the Syria issue. Now, he
said, “I’m skeptical myself.”