‘There Are Not a Lot of Profiles in Courage’: Jake Tapper Hammers Congress on Syria

During a panel discussion minutes ahead of President Barack Obama’s last news conference of the year, CNN anchor Jake Tapper criticized POTUS’s policy when it comes to Syria, but pointed out that Congress shouldn’t be left off the hook.

Following conversation about what the military action needed to be in regards to the situation with Bashar al-Assad killing his own citizens, Tapper highlighted that “two people with blood on their hands in Syria” are Vladimir Putin and Assad. He then pivoted to Obama and Congress.

“In terms of the blame in the United States, President Obama gets blame for his policy which cannot be seen as a success in any way, shape or form,” Tapper stated. “But to let Congress off the hook would be doing a real disservice to history.”

The CNN anchor noted that Congress didn’t have the votes to enforce the red line that Obama had brought up when it came to Assad using chemical weapons on his own people. He then slammed Congress over how easy it is to criticize the President without doing anything themselves.

“There are not a lot of profiles in courage I see on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue when it comes to Syria either,” he said. “And it’s very easy for members of Congress to beat their chest and talk about president Obama’s failure.”

He wasn’t done. “I saw a lot of them running back to their home districts and blaming it on President Obama from the comfort of under their desks,” the State of the Union host exclaimed.

“The like shirking responsibility,” he continued. “They like not having the war powers act be a real resolution because it enables them to blame the president when things go wrong and not have any ownership of anything that goes wrong as well.”

Watch the clip above, via CNN.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona

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