Things are about to get weird in Washington.
The national Republican Party is famous for its “big tent” composition. You’ve got spending hawks, defense hawks, big-government hawks, tax hawks, the social conservatives, the religious right and other factions.
In recent years, these groups have kept things inside and outside the GOP big top interesting, supplying Washington with palace intrigue befitting a royal wedding.
But despite a few squabbles that spilled into public, the big tent remains intact. That’s because one thing was more powerful than internal differences over deficit reduction, defense spending, immigration and other issues: Republicans’ shared disdain for President Barack Obama.
So it was stunning last week to hear senior Republicans passionately argue in favor of granting Obama even more leeway in fighting the Islamic State group than he’s asking for.
Sen. Orin Hatch, R-Utah, the chamber’s president pro tempore and a senior Judiciary Committee member, is no supporter of Obama. Yet he told CongressWatch that lawmakers should pass an authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) “broad enough … to give the president the authority to do whatever he has to.
“And, also,” Hatch said, “it ought to cover any other terrorists and wherever they are.”
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Obama critic in chief on national security and foreign policy issues, went further. He told reporters it would be “unconstitutional” for Congress to approve an AUMF that slaps a single restriction on how Obama can use US ground troops to fight Islamic State extremists.
One senior GOP senator who requested anonymity to be candid said Republicans want Obama — whom they have criticized for too often using campaign-style rhetoric — to mount an aggressive campaign to sell the need for a broad AUMF to the American people.
John T. Bennett
Photo Credit: Mike Morones
Juana Summers of National Public Radio tweeted that House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., warned against granting the president “a blank check” in fighting the violent Sunni group.
In contrast to McCain, Smith has loyally played the role of Obama defender in chief.
Suddenly, congressional Republicans want to hand the president they so revile limitless leeway over the country’s latest post-9/11 armed conflict.
The dogs want to give the biggest cat more power than the feline in chief is seeking to direct the world’s most-lethal military.
All of this could produce an interesting few months on Capitol Hill — that is, if Obama really wants an AUMF. After all, he has said the force authorization passed after 9/11 gives him all the authorities he needs.
Notably, his proposal leans more closely to what Democrats want — even if just so. And it likely will take some votes from Obama’s own party to pass a measure, meaning Republicans won’t get everything they want. That could end what looks on the surface like the first AUMF moment in 13 years.
Perhaps the cat has the dogs just where he wants them. ■
