Congress is back and it is time for them to get back to work. While there are a lot of items on their “to-do list” Syria has become the hot button issue on The Hill.
President Obama is expected to address the nation Tuesday at 9pm ET. in hopes of persuading Americans that action needs to be taken, as public support is not behind him. According to recent polling, Americans are not in favor of taking military action in Syria and organizations like MoveOn are trying to pursued constituents to call their Representative and have them vote ‘”no.”
One member of Congress whom President Obama doesn’t have to convince is Virginia’s Democratic Representative, Gerry Connolly, who believes we should have limited military action in Syria. “I am working on a resolution that narrowly constricts what is being proposed to the terms actually laid out by the president himself.,” Representative Connolly said on Monday’s show. “We are dealing with the chemical attack and only with that chemical attack and no boots on the ground and no further expansion of involvement.”
Persuading members of Congress, and the American people, that military action is the right move is an uphill battle right now, Rep. Connolly pointed out. “Everything has risks–including doing nothing,” Rep. Connolly said. “Doing nothing almost certainly guarantees chemical weapons becoming a sort of ordinary weapon of choice in war fare and secondly they will proliferate. Neither one of those is a desirable goal for the United States.”
Abby Borovitz