When
President Obama decided to seek authorization to bomb Syria, he didn’t
just throw the fate of his plans into the hands of 535 unpredictable
members of Congress. He also made himself vulnerable to overblown
suggestions that his entire second term is on the line.
Political
reporters have a weakness for narratives, and the narrative of a
weakened president is irresistible. Moreover, members of Congress will
feed that narrative. Even Democrats. If you’re Nancy Pelosi or Harry
Reid, a great way to pad your vote count is to plead to your caucus that
if the resolution fails, Obama will become a lame duck a year earlier
than he ought to.
This pitch is both morally and factually incorrect.
Let’s
assume that absent a divisive, losing debate over striking Syria, Obama
would have real potential to accomplish meaningful things before the
end of his presidency. An immigration bill, say. It would be perverse
for members to accede to acts of war they’d otherwise oppose to salvage
an unrelated issue like immigration reform. The moral argument here is
the same one that made the “death panel” charge so offensive — making
the country’s health systems affordable is a praiseworthy goal, but that
doesn’t make killing old people OK.
But the good news for
Democratic whips on Capitol Hill is that they don’t need to engage in
this kind of manipulation. If the Syria vote goes down, the gloom and
doom tales of Obama’s losing gamble will be false.
To the extent
that Congress has the will to do anything other than vote on an
authorization to strike Syria, the outcome of that vote is disconnected
from those other issues. If House Republican leaders believe they and
their party have an interest in passing immigration reform or any other
issue, they’ll do it no matter how the Syria vote comes down.
The
same moral argument works in reverse. If Republicans think an
immigration bill should become law, it’s wrong of them to block it
because of hard feelings, just as it’s wrong for John Boehner to kill
legislation he supports in the abstract for member management purposes,
or the self-interest of his own speakership.
Whether the vote to
bomb Syria passes or fails, I expect some Republicans will cite it as a
key reason when other unrelated issues fizzle. But they’ll be lying. The
fight over Syria — like the fights over funding the government and
increasing the debt limit — will provide useful cover to Republicans who
have already resolved themselves against supporting immigration reform,
or a farm bill, or a budget deal, or anything else.
Which
brings us to the more depressing point. The idea that Obama will make
himself an early lame duck if Congress rejects his request to bomb Syria
is more easily belied by the fact that Congress probably isn’t going to
do anything else anyhow.
Syria won’t derail Obama’s second term — Republicans will. As New York magazine’s Dan Amira
put it,
“After losing Syria vote, Obama’s chances of passing agenda through
Congress would go from about 0% to approximately 0%. #hugesetback.”
That’s an extremely wry way of conveying a depressing truism: Syria
won’t derail Obama’s second term — House Republicans will.
Anyone
who lends credence to the idea that the Syria debate sealed the fate of
issues like immigration reform is giving Republicans a free pass. They
have complete agency. And though they’ll attempt to shrink the
responsibility that comes with it by connecting the Syria debate to
other issues within their control, it’s a ruse nobody should fall for.
So
if everything’s disconnected, and each issue creates different
incentives, what should we expect when Congress debates Syria? As with
almost everything in this Congress, I think a great deal depends on what
the Senate does. If the Senate authorization fails, then the House is
probably off the hook. If it passes, then I imagine John Boehner will
have to rethink his role in the debate: He supports the strike, but
isn’t trying to persuade any of his members to join him, and claims
responsibility for GOP votes lies with President Obama.
That won’t
be a viable position if the fate of the authorization lies in the House
and the House only. If Boehner were opposed to striking Syria he could
maintain consistency no matter what happens in the Senate. But he
doesn’t. And so if the resolution passes the Senate, he’s going to have
to ask himself whether he’s comfortable with the idea of it dying in the
House, because he, unlike Nancy Pelosi, couldn’t marshal his share of
the votes.
Maybe he’s fine with that. Personally, I think it would
be the best possible outcome, for Congress, the White House and the
country. But then those same narrative-starved reporters will have a new
villain if the Assad regime responds to the development, as the
administration has suggested, by launching more chemical attacks against
the Syrian opposition.
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