Obviously, The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne takes some swipes at the GOP for failing to be super enthusiastic for whatever-the-hell Obama’s Syria policy is (beyond throwing a few bombs and missiles): that’s expected. By throwing a vote to congress Obama was creating a situation where the GOP could be assaulted no matter what.
Then we get to
They will not prevail, however, unless Obama makes an unabashedly moral case on Tuesday explaining why things are different than they were a few months ago while laying out a practical strategy beyond the strikes. He must do something very difficult: show that his approach could succeed, over time, in replacing Assad with a new government without enmeshing the United States in a land conflict involving troops on the ground.
“They” being the GOP and Dem leaders who want to give Obama Congressional authorization. But, notice that Dionne puts this in squarely moral terms. There’s no national security motive, except in terms of not making Obama look like the total jackass and SCOAMF we, and most world leaders, already know he is.
Notice his headline: Syria puts our system on trial (on the front page it is U.S. resolve on the line, in Congress). So, if we fail to give President McBombypants, who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, authorization for a meaningless slap on the wrist, out whole system is apparently toast. And will supposedly turn America into a second class nation. I kid you not, that’s how he ends the piece.
Of course, the WP also has a story that 59% still oppose any strikes. Most can see that this isn’t about American interests or security except at the extreme margins, but about helping Obama dig himself out of the hole he dug. It’s Obama’s credibility, not America’s.
