| Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty September 4, 2013 Persuasion Tip: Stop Comparing Your Old 'Partner for Peace' to Hitler How's this for irony? Chuck Hagel and John Kerry, writing in the Wall Street Journal back on June 5, 2008, in an op-ed headlined, "It's Time to Talk to Syria": After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991, President George H. W. Bush did the improbable and convinced Syrian President Hafez Assad to join an American-led coalition against a fellow Baathist regime. Today, these leaders' sons have another chance for a diplomatic breakthrough that could redefine the strategic landscape in the Middle East. . . . While many doubt Syria's intentions, we have real leverage and some inducements that have more value to Syria than cost to us. There is no guarantee of an agreement, but the potential payoff is huge, and our current policy is failing. Of course, that was 110,000 dead and a couple nerve-gas attacks ago. The desire to punish a murderous brutal dictator for using abominable weapons is good and noble and right. But it's insufferable to be told that we have to do this, by the crowd that a half-decade ago kept telling us how wrong we were about Bashar Assad, and how he was just a misunderstood, reasonable reformer. During a debate, Obama said he was willing to meet with Assad in the first year of his administration. (The summit never took place.) Pelosi did meet with him, and said afterwards, "We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace." Kerry met with him at least six times. Now Kerry tells us, "Bashar al-Assad now joins the list of Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein who have used these weapons in time of war," and he's alluding to the Holocaust. You spent much of the past decade insisting we judged Assad too harshly. Let's see some humility, fellas. On Tuesday, the two guys who five years ago confidently assured the world of Assad's value as a partner for peace went before the Senate and confidently assured the country that the administration's plan for limited long-distance airstrikes would be quick and effective. Hagel's testimony showcased how the conventional wisdom about him was almost entirely wrong. Remember, he was supposed to be the quasi-isolationist budget-cutter who wanted to disengage from the Middle East. Perhaps he still is, and he's stifling what he really believes in service to the president. Or perhaps he never really meant it, and merely grasped that the media would embrace and adore him as a veteran anti-Iraq-War Republican. Or perhaps he's not really sure what he thinks. 
"Wait, you're serious? You want me to go to the Hill and get them to sign off on this?" War Salesman Hagel sounded quite different from War-Weary Skeptic Hagel -- particularly when discussing Syria. Chuck Hagel in May 2012: "I think we've got to be very wise and careful on this and continue to work with the multilateral institutions in the lead in Syria. I don't think America wants to be in the lead on this," he said. "What you have to do is manage the problem. You manage it to a higher ground of possible solutions, ultimately to try to get to a resolution. You don't have control over what's going on in Syria." "You've got to be patient, smart, wise, manage the problem," he said. "We've got to understand great-power limitations. There are so many uncontrollable variables at play in Syria and the Middle East," Hagel said. "You work through the multilateral institutions that are available, the U.N., the Arab league. The last thing you want is an American-led or Western-led invasion into Syria." Lesson: Nobody really knows how cabinet appointments will turn out. Foreign Policy magazine, back in December 2012: "With Hagel at the helm, Obama could proceed even more quickly with cutting the defense budget and retrenching abroad, while largely neutering his Republican adversaries . . . He would also be a likely opponent of direct American intervention in Syria and push for as small a remaining military force in Afghanistan as possible. His entire thrust is to emphasize diplomacy over brute power. Hagel's doctrine is crystal clear: No matter how well-intentioned America may be, it cannot single-handedly impose democracy abroad." Chuck Hagel, back in 2007: "I have to say this is one of the most arrogant, incompetent administrations I've ever seen or ever read about . . . They have failed the country." The job's a little harder than it looked from the outside, huh, Mr. Secretary? Yesterday Senator Ron Johnson (R., Wis.), asked a devastating question: "You say this is the world's red line, not ours, and I agree. So how many partners will we have with us?" If sending troops is the price of stopping chemical attacks, almost all of the nations in the world are actually perfectly okay with chemical attacks, as long as they're not downwind. If Obama Attacks Without Authorization . . . Then What? Not too look too far around the bend, but Josh Kraushaar confirms what we all suspected: The House could very well reject the authorization of military force. Already strong anti-war sentiment in the Democratic caucus -- about 40 percent opposed the Iraq war resolution in 2002, with a more hawkish caucus and political environment -- and it's a formula for mass defections. Don't expect much support from Republicans either, despite Boehner's support and the party's tradition of hawkishness during the Bush administration. Factor in the incentives to oppose Obama at all costs and a rising tide of libertarianism within the caucus, and it's hard to see a majority of Republicans supporting. When Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who generally supports an active American presence overseas, is on the fence, it's a clear sign Republicans won't be running to the president's aid. Other examples abound: Representing a bellwether seat, Iraq war vet Chris Gibson was an early Syria dove. Virginia Rep. Scott Rigell, in a military-heavy swing Tidewater district, has also been an outspoken skeptic. As publicly confident as the administration has been over winning a vote, the math for passage was always going to be exceedingly difficult. Surely the administration conducted its own polling that confirmed the degree of public hesitance, if not outright opposition, to an intervention. And it's hard to believe the Obama administration expected congressional acquiescence, given his dismissive approach to dealing with House Republicans. Building a strong relationship with Congress is not this administration's forte. So if Congress votes "no," . . . what happens then? Our friend Ramesh Ponnuru states it plainly: The Constitution trumps any statute. The question is whether its grant to Congress of the power to "declare war" means that Congress has to authorize discretionary military action -- that is, action that is not a response to a past or impending attack on Americans -- before the president can act. It would be foolish to read the constitutional text to mean that Congress has to use the words "declare war" to make military action legitimate: The Constitution itself nowhere says anything to that effect. The arguments that the president need not get congressional approval, however that approval is worded, have always struck me as sophistry: attempts to narrow the meaning of "declare" or "war" beyond any plausible construction. ("If it's not World War II, it's not really a war . . . ") But the most natural reading of the evidence is that it's Congress that moves us from a state of peace to a state of war. If Congress votes against a strike on Syria and the president acts anyway, he will be violating his oath of office. Hey, How's that Culture of Accountability at the IRS Doing? Meanwhile, over at the IRS . . . The second in command at the Internal Revenue Service, Beth Tucker, will retire at the end of September. Tucker, the Deputy Commissioner of Operations Support, is a 29-year IRS veteran and in her current position reports directly to the agency's commissioner. She came under fire for her failure to act when she learned that the IRS had awarded hundreds of millions or dollars in contracts, fraudulently, to the information technology provider Strong Castle, Inc. The House Oversight Committee's report in the matter alleged that Strong Castle's CEO procured the contracts as a result of his friendship with a top IRS official; both invoked their Fifth Amendment rights at the committee's hearing on the matter. The report states, "Perhaps most alarming of all is the fact that IRS officials -- including Deputy Commissioner Beth Tucker -- repeatedly denied a problem existed and failed to take action when Chairman Issa first raised these concerns in a February 2013 letter.". . . National Review Online reported in July that Tucker is one of a handful of senior IRS officials who, according to inspector general J. Russell George, "ran up extremely high travel expenses" on the taxpayer dole commuting to Washington, D.C., from outside the region (she lives in Texas). The agency has since changed its travel policy, putting an end to the practice of employees commuting to the capitol by plane. How many employers are okay with covering the travel costs of employees who live several states away? Are we to believe the IRS couldn't find a Deputy Commissioner of Operations Support who lived in the D.C. area? Not even in this time zone? ADDENDA: Joe Scarborough, this morning: "Robert Gibbs and Chris Matthews nailed it on Morning Joe. Getting support for this war in the House rest on the shoulders of Nancy Pelosi." Feeling better, war skeptics? Then again, she did get Obamacare passed . . .
NRO Digest — September 4, 2013 Today on National Review Online . . . To read more, visit www.nationalreview.com
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