{"id":18754,"date":"2013-09-04T18:16:35","date_gmt":"2013-09-04T22:16:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=18754"},"modified":"2013-09-04T18:16:35","modified_gmt":"2013-09-04T22:16:35","slug":"senate-lying-to-self-with-%e2%80%98tailored%e2%80%99-syria-resolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/18754\/senate-lying-to-self-with-%e2%80%98tailored%e2%80%99-syria-resolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Lying to Self with \u2018Tailored\u2019 Syria Resolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

A highly regarded separation of powers expert says the Senate Foreign Relations Committee\u2019s oddly worded resolution to authorize military force in Syria might be more expansive than its drafters intend<\/a>, according to the Washington Times.<\/p>\n

At issue is the resolution\u2019s use of the words \u201climited and tailored\u201d in the phrase giving President Barack Obama power \u201cto use the armed forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in a limited and tailored manner against legitimate military targets in Syria\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Louis Fisher, a former long-time expert at the Congressional Research Service and author of a leading treatise on presidential war powers<\/a>, says the word choice is unprecedented and could be so vague that it creates space for an escalation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat could possibly be the meaning of \u2018limited and tailored\u2019? I doubt if I\u2019ve ever seen the word \u2018tailored’ in a bill,\u201d Fisher told the paper. \u201cEven if the \u2018intent\u2019 of Congress is a limited war, war has its own momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, use of the word \u2018tailored\u2019 in the resolution can mean anything to the clever lawyers who will twist it however they please, so in reality that word, and any limiting effect it is designed to have, is meaningless.<\/p>\n

It is impossible for me to imagine that the people drafting this resolution don’t know this. Therefore, it seems almost certain that the underlying intent here is to sound like they are limiting the President’s options while in fact not doing so at all.<\/p>\n

If we\u2019re going to bomb Syria then we are going to war with Syria. If that\u2019s in America\u2019s national security interest, Congress should declare it in unambiguous language.<\/p>\n

To my mind it\u2019s better to do nothing than to say something that means nothing.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, Congress is just lying to itself so that it can act outraged when the President uses the resolution to wage a war the Senate and House impliedly authorized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A highly regarded separation of powers expert says the Senate Foreign Relations Committee\u2019s oddly worded resolution to authorize military force in Syria might be more expansive than its drafters intend, according to the Washington Times. At issue is the resolution\u2019s use of the words \u201climited and tailored\u201d in the phrase giving President Barack Obama power […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[143,84,4255,38,2414,750],"class_list":["post-18754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-barack-obama","tag-congress","tag-resolution","tag-senate","tag-syria","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18754"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18759,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18754\/revisions\/18759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}