Charles Krauthammer took to Fox News following President Obama’s statements from the Rose Garden on Saturday to slam the administration for engaging in “amateur hour” for failing to show a sense of urgency in the Syrian conflict.
The president said he would delay a strike on Syria pending authorization from Congress when members return from their summer vacation next week.
“[T]he most astonishing thing is the lack of any urgency,” said The Washington Post columnist, the Daily Caller first reported. “As you say, Congress will be back in a week. He says, ’I can strike in a day or a week or a month,’ as if he is a judge handing down a sentence and the execution can be any time in the future. There is a war going on. Do you think everybody is going to hold their breath, hold their arms, step aside until Obama decides when he wants to go to Congress?
“Look, I think he should go to Congress,” Mr. Krauthammer continued. “I think it is absolutely necessary. But he has done no preparation. … This is sort of amateur hour. When there were the first attacks six months ago or if you like, when we had the current attacks, he should have immediately have called in the Congress the way the prime minister of Britain had called in the Parliament, had a debate and got a resolution and then went out and told the world we are going do X or we are not going to do X.”
Mr. Krauthammer added that a decision should have been made in three days, “and the world, I think, will have higher respect … [Mr. Obama] looks like a president who boxed himself into a corner and is looking for a way out.”
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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