[Slambat]

I don’t see how the Obama could loose. If they vote against
it, he can lay the whole defeat on congress and Bush. If they
vote for military action he can say his hands are tied and
blame it all on congress and Bush. However, if either way
turns out to be the right move he will be right there ready
to take full credit. The guys an ass.

[Ben Ficklin]

You have to read all the way to the last line in the article where it says: Its not about the president, its about the precedent.

So it is not only about what authority Obama has or could be given to him by Congress, it is also how the next prez will use that authority. They all know that the next prez will either be the Liberal Interventionist/hawkish democrat Hillary or a NeoCon Republican Hawk.

These "liberals" mentioned in the article are not to concerned with what Obama will do because he has been very concise in what he wants from congress and what he wants to do. But they are concerned with the next prez.

So, in congress there is one group made up of Liberal Interventionists Democrats and NeoCon Republicans who want to give the prez more power/authority and a second group made up of Antiwar Democrats and Isolationist Republicans who want to give the prez less power.

But there is also in Congress another group called Realists which are made up both republicans and democrats like democrat Diane Feinstein and republican Bob Corker and how they come down on the issue will determine the outcome.

Overriding all this is the fact that congress is composed of gutless wonders more concerned with the election. They have delayed it past the primary but don't want to do anything until after the general in Nov.

They could do something vague and meaningless soon but will wait for the lame duck session before they do something substantive.

Obama has the war powers act, the Iraq AUMF, and the authority given to him in 2013 by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to arm Syrian rebels and bomb Assad. He wants to trade all this in and wants congress to give him $5 billion for his "Counterterrorism Partnership Fund" that will allow him to operate in Iraq and Syria the same way he operates in Yemen, Somalia, Phillipines, and various other places in Africa.

Then, if Obama needed additional authority beyond what that gave him, he would have to go back to congress for that specific authority. Obama wants to limit his own authority and limit the authority of the next president. He wants to limit the authority that Liberal Interventionist Hawk Hillary or a NeoCon Republican Hawk would have if/when either of them becomes prez in 2017.