“Obama made clear in his Rose Garden announcement that he wasn’t seeking Congress’s approval out of constitutional necessity. “I believe I have the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization,” he said, arguing that the “country will be stronger” if Congress grants authorization. That happens to be precisely the argument the Bush administration made in the run-up to the Iraq War in 2002. The president also acknowledged during a press conference in Sweden on Wednesday that the United States “may not be directly, imminently threated” by the conflict in Syria.
As liberal commentators such as E. J. Dionne and Nicholas Kristof – along with a host of previously “anti-war” Democrats – have lined up in support of Obama’s plan to attack Syria, there has been relatively little discussion about the president’s blatant disavowal of the opinion he expressed as a candidate in 2007, when he told the Boston Globe that “the President does not have 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.””
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/357764/obama-constitutional-hero-andrew-stiles
But wait. Bush did get authorization, and Obama says he will strike without it, so I guess it really isn’t the same, is it?
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