Trust, But Verify Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at Newsweek, I make the case for Congress to do more than just rubber stamp troop increases for Afghanistan, but actually hold the President's accountable on his Afghanistan policy:

Instead of simply following the president, Congress must now lead as well. As the only institution directly able to hold the president's feet to the fire on Afghanistan policy (short of the American people in 2012), Congress must hold hearings that pose difficult questions to the president's advisers. It must demand far more specific and detailed answers than the president offered Tuesday about his exit strategy for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and the benchmarks that he will use to define success on the ground.

. . . During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama said his goal as president would be to "change the mindset" of American foreign policy and prevent repeating the mistakes of the Iraq War. It will be up to Congress to ensure that he lives up to his words.

Read the whole thing here

Comments

[valentines day presents]

Obama The Hawk now needs Democrats in the Congress to look over the plan so as to find cover for Obama if he feels he meeds to get back to Dove standing.This is toplan some talking points and sound bites for that occation--should the plan go wrong.Now US troops will be able to do some serious butt whipping on terrorists and we must all support our troops! This is Obama The Hawk's war now and he DID say he would do it during the campaign. It was among all his I"m agonna we're agonna's speeches calculated to make it appear he was so much smarter than Bush, who was Commander In Chief at the time.Congressional Republicans should make their effort to varify as Johnson was a doddeling Hawk,too.