Bill Maher Tricks Sen. Adam Schiff Into Criticizing Obama’s Libya War Justification: “Totally Vague”
HBO’s Bill Maher pulled a fast one on California Democrat Sen. Adam Schiff, letting him denounce a “vague” justification for military action, before revealing that the quote actually came from the Obama administration during the 2011 bombings of Libya.
BILL MAHER: This statement from the administration: ‘The president had the constitutional authority to direct the use of military force because he could reasonably determine that such use of force was in the national interest.’ That’s too vague for you? SEN. ADAM SCHIFF: Totally vague. BILL MAHER: Okay, because that’s from Obama about Libya. SEN. ADAM SCHIFF: Well, Obama made the argument initially that he could go into Syria without authorization. I and many others pushed back on that argument. Ultimately, he did not go forward with going after Assad, even though Assad was gassing his own people, because he thought he might lose the vote in Congress. But I respect the fact that it was important to him, and the fact that he didn’t have the support of Congress meant we were not going to move forward. We are unquestionably at war now. The founders made an extraordinary decision at the time, which was not to give that power to the president, but to give it to the Congress, because they were worried, as Hamilton said, that a president would grow to fond of making war. After Venezuela and the earlier Iran conflict, bombing Nigeria and Iraq and Syria, he’s grown too fond of this. And Congress needs to steo up, assert its role, or it is going to be gone for good. Or any time a president for any reason, anywhere in the world, for any length of time, will feel free to make war. And that would be hugely dangerous for the country.
