TIMEliness:
This article is an example of timeliness because these events
happened only a few dys ago. Also, it's talking about what is
going on in america right now.
House Speaker Backs Obama’s Call for Strike Against Syria
Christopher Gregory/The New York Times
President Obama met with members of Congress on Tuesday, including Speaker John A. Boehner and Representative Nancy Pelosi.
By MARK LANDLER, MICHAEL R. GORDON and JACKIE CALMES
Published: September 3, 2013 76 Comments
TIMELINESS:
WASHINGTON — Speaker John A. Boehner said on Tuesday that he would “support the president’s call to action” in Syria after meeting with President Obama, giving the president a crucial ally in the quest for votes in the House.
Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 House Republican, quickly joined Mr. Boehner to say he also backed Mr. Obama.
“Understanding that there are differing opinions on both sides of the aisle, it is up to President Obama to make the case to Congress and to the American people that this is the right course of action, and I hope he is successful in that endeavor,” Mr. Cantor said in a statement.
Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. summoned Mr. Boehner and other Republican and Democratic leaders to the White House as they intensified their push for Congressional approval of an attack on Syria. Conservative House Republicans have expressed deep reluctance about the president’s strategy, and winning Mr. Boehner’s approval could help the president make inroads with a group that has not supported him on most issues in the past.
Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, said, “I believe the American people need to hear more about the intelligence.”
Ms. Pelosi said she did believe that Congressional authorization was a good thing, although not necessary, and that she was hopeful the American people “will be persuaded of” military action.
“President Obama did not write the red line,” she said. “History wrote the red line decades ago.”
But, she said, people in her California district were not convinced that military action was necessary. And she said the administration needed to continue making its case.
“There’s work to be done,” she said. “Some won’t ever be comfortable with it.”
Other Democrats also voiced support.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said military action was “key and critical.” She added, “It’s important to the security of the Middle East and to the security of the world.”
Representative Eliot L. Engel, Democrat of New York, said, “Iran is watching us very carefully in Syria as a test of how we’ll respond when they have a nuclear weapon.” He added that the consensus in the White House meeting was to support the president.
For Mr. Obama, who leaves on Tuesday evening for a three-day trip to Sweden and Russia, the meeting was the next phase in a White House lobbying campaign that will have to extend beyond hawks like Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, to persuade lawmakers who are reluctant to get involved militarily in Syria.
The president’s case will face scrutiny in Congress on Tuesday afternoon when Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
On Wednesday, Mr. Kerry and Mr. Hagel are scheduled to appear before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Winning support in the Republican-controlled House is likely to be harder than in the Senate, where Democrats hold a slim majority and Mr. McCain has a voice.
Mr. Obama also continued shoring up international support for military action, speaking on Monday evening with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, who the White House said in a statement agreed with Mr. Obama “that the use of chemical weapons is a serious violation of international norms and cannot be tolerated.”
After an hourlong White House meeting on Monday, Mr. McCain said that Mr. Obama had given general support to doing more for the Syrian rebels, but that no specifics were agreed upon.
Officials said that in the same conversation, which included Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, Mr. Obama indicated that a covert effort by the United States to arm and train Syrian rebels was beginning to yield results: the first 50-man cell of fighters, who have been trained by the C.I.A., was beginning to sneak into Syria
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