Heh! Britain Has Helped Obama Rediscover The Constitution

01 Sep, 2013 by William Teach

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Something a bit humorous from The Telegraph’s Tim Stanley

Obama and Syria: Britain has helped Obama rediscover the Constitution. No need to thank us, America

This afternoon, President Obama was 35 minutes late to deliver his statement on Syria to the media. Well, he likes to keep his fans waiting.

But when he did show up, the Prez put in a remarkable performance. Yes, Obama does believe Assad has used chemical weapons against his own people and, yes, he does want to do something about it. But rather than take immediate action, he’s going to seek Congress’ approval first. In the course of his statement, he name checked Britain and its own parliamentary vote on Thursday. So we basically taught Obama to respect his own constitution. No need to thank us, America.

Mr. Stanley goes on to note interpretations on why Obama did this, including making sure Congress, especially Republicans, get blamed either way. Because this isn’t really about Obama respecting the Constitution, which would be a first, but about trying to dig his way out of the red line comments and warhawk rhetoric of the previous week, while making sure he can score some political points against Congressional Republicans. Meanwhile, at the NY TImes

President Pulls Lawmakers Into Box He Made

The headline is all you need to know.

Charles Krauthammer is slamming Obama as amateur hour. Not sure what Charles is seeing, every hour is amateur hour for Team Obama. And Ben Smith is getting the vapors and a bit of bromance over Obama giving power back to Congress. He features this tweet

Big move by POTUS. Consistent with his principles. Congress is now the dog that caught the car. Should be a fascinating week!

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) August 31, 2013

That should tell us everything we need to know, chiefly that Obama is turning this into a domestic fight, rather than a real concern about “national security” and “moral imperatives.”

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.