Obama is going on a whirlwind media blitz [6] this week in an attempt to sell a very skeptical public on war with Syria.
Yet the Washington Post notes [7]:
Obama’s top aide says the administration lacks “irrefutable, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence” that skeptical Americans, including lawmakers who will start [8] voting on military action this week, are seeking.
Indeed, those who have seen the evidence say that it is incredibly weak [9]. German intelligence also says that Assad didn’t order the attacks [10].
Moreover, President Obama correctly noted in 2007 [11]:
The President does not have the power [8] 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 [12]:
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 a Kosovo or a Syria or Rwanda 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 [13]:
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.”
BONUS: