its weapons of mass destruction program ten years ago was that they were afraid that they would invade libya like we invaded iraq. one of the down sides of no longer having a down side of saying we ll invade countries at random, they won t fear us. the question is, what was the point of attacking? i agree with your political calculus. i think there are a lot more reasons for people to come out with their no vote now. on the other hand, republicans have to seem like they re skeptical of anything this president does even if they may eventually vote yes. democrats have to vote to their base that they are weary in getting entangled in anything overseas. let s say that this measure does fail in the house and the president does not get the authorization of force that he was hoping to get, what do you think happens then? do you think that he backs down? as you know, he has reserved the right. he said he didn t have to go to congress. do you think he waits for assad to do something else and
iraq, a failed effort in afghanistan though perhaps initially justified and the incredible diversion of resources away from domestic priorities where we have communities that are still suffering with incredible unemployment, poverty, income disparities and issues that need to be addressed here at home. so i know all of my colleagues, not just members of the congressional black caucus although we may be particularly sensitive to the issue, of getting involved in a foreign conflict that will further divert resources away from the issues that we need to be dealing with here at home for the people that we represent. you talk about the people that you represent. you ve got folks all over the country calling their congress people to say, hey, i don t want any intervention here. hate to get all ask your congressman on you, but i am in your district. i am one of your constituents. let s get all after congressmen about it. let s get local. how would a strike impact the people of brooklyn? how
is such a horrible situation we have to do something. i think what we re hearing from a lot of congressional aids is the white house has made that case fairly clearly. people believe that assad was behind the chemical attack and that syria is a humanitarian disaster. they have not explained how exactly our intervention is supposed to make that any better. i think the time line is important for establishing the president s position. the fact that the syrian situation is such a humanitarian crisis is a necessary condition for arguing that we should invade but it s not a sufficient condition. there s another case the white house hasn t made. nothing that we re talking about aims to actually deal with the humanitarian crisis. we re trying to spank them for using chemical weapons which is why the washington post whip couldn t, let s dig into where congress is. in the senate 23 nos, 55 undecided, 22 yess. maybe they ll get through congress, but the house, 178 nos so far, 103 up decided, on
all of us in the congress and i m taking it with all the seriousness that it deserves. congressman, the majority of americans are still skeptical. they are not convinced. it s interesting, i looked at a poll that took place in december. 63% of americans were actually supportive of u.s. action if syria used chemical weapons. at that point it was a hypothetical question. a stark contrast to what we re seeing today. 60% opposing a missile strike. many of these people are waiting to hear from the president. they want the president to lay out his case. when do you expect to hear from the president and what could he say to change the perception? i support the president. i trust the president. i think it s different than the bush/cheney crowd and the shenanigans we saw that led us into the war in iraq. the problem is he s saddled with those credibility issues perhaps unfairly as a result of what was done in the past and what led us into the conflict in iraq. i do think that for that reaso
strike further in the future? i have great difficulty imagining the president to react to a negative vote in congress and going ahead and attacking anyway. i think for one thing it would seriously open him up to an impeachment threat. i also think the white house s reservation of that power is more about future military actions. they don t want to set a precedent that any time the president wants to make a strike against anybody he has to go to congress, but i do think it really did set a precedent specifically for this syria situation. now if there are developments in syria that strengthen the argument for attacking, i think it s likely that the white house will again raise the possibility of doing that. i suspect outside a situation where there s a true immediate threat to the united states where the president can say, look, there was literally no time for me to go back to congress, i think that requires him to go back and say, here, with this new better information, now approve th