As part of last Friday's Mitch Perry Report, I chided the members of Congress for sitting back and making comments about the situation in Syria without having to be held accountable.
That equation changed on Saturday, when President Obama announced that he wants Congress to debate and vote on a resolution authorizing military force. However, lawmakers aren't scheduled to reconvene at the Capitol for another week (Sept. 9). Some might say this is a good thing, allowing for a public conversation between our lawmakers and the public. But seriously, shouldn't they be voting on the resolution this week?
Maybe the president's men think otherwise, considering that there probably isn't a majority of votes in the House (hard to say about the Senate) right now to approve such a decision. But the administration is apparently employing a "flood the zone" approach to getting the message out, including using John McCain and Lindsey Graham as their chief surrogates in the Senate. But it's on President Obama to call them in early, and he hasn't.
As I reported yesterday, if a sampling of the Tampa Bay area Congressional House delegation is any indication, the resolution to attack Syria will fail.
And if you relied on the print dailies to tell you about a protest against a potential attack on Syria, which took place in Tampa on Saturday night, well, you didn't read about it. But I was in attendance, and you can read about it here.
And just down the block from where the anti-war activists were protesting on Saturday night, there was another public show of dissent on Gandy Boulevard — this time by activists supporting the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and their continuing campaign against Publix grocery stores.