Two diametrically different takes on the administration's Suleimani briefing to legislators

I first saw the video of Mile Lee's animated expression of outrage on the news last night. (It's here at the linked National Review piece.) Rand Paul was standing supportively with Lee as he talked to reporters.

Lee called the meeting “probably the worst briefing I’ve seen, at least on a military issues, in the nine years I’ve served in the United States Senate,” and while he commended Trump for showing “a lot of restraint” in foreign policy, he added that he wanted to speak to the president directly about the lack of clarity in the assessment.

“I went in there hoping to get more specifics as far as the factual, legal, moral justification for what they did,” Lee said. “I’m still undecided on that issue, in part because we never got to the details.”

“It is not acceptable for officials within the executive branch of government — I don’t care whether they’re with the CIA, with the Department of Defense, or otherwise — to come in and tell us that we can’t debate and discuss the appropriateness of military intervention against Iran. It’s un-American. It’s unconstitutional. And it’s wrong. And I hope and expect that they will show more deference to their limited power in the future.”

.@SenMikeLee
: "It is not acceptable for officials within the executive branch of government…to come in and tell us that we can't debate and discuss the appropriateness of military intervention against Iran. It's un-American. It's unconstitutional and it's wrong." pic.twitter.com/fVSE6b3EM0

— CSPAN (@cspan) January 8, 2020

Paul agreed, and called the administration’s citation of the 2002 authorization of the use of military force in Iraq as justification for Soleimani’s killing “absurd” and an “insult.”

Democrat Tim Kaine of Virginia has put forth a war-powers resolution that Lee says he's going to support.

But other Republican Senators at the briefing came away with a markedly different assessment:

Florida senator Marco Rubio called the briefing “very compelling.”

Natl Security officials gave a compelling briefing to Senators just now. They answered every important question. 

Anyone who walks out & says they aren’t convinced action against #Soleimani was justified is either never going to be convinced or just oppose everything Trump does.

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 8, 2020 

Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) voiced his approval, saying “a third-grader could’ve figured this out.”

“I think people have lost their minds about who we’re dealing with,” Graham toldreporters. “You don’t need the CIA. You’ve got an embassy being ransacked. You’ve got a contractor killed.” 

Now, my temptation is to bring my overall assessments of these Senators to bear in deciding which viewpoint is a more accurate depiction of the briefing. Rubio first started sullying his conservative bona fides by getting involved in the Gang of Eight approach to immigration, and has lately been on this "common-good capitalism" kick that strongly indicates his having lost sight of the free-market principles that he's presumably been steeped in, at least in his formative years. And Graham has famously been all over the map on all manner of issues. He and "maverick" John McCain used to egg each other on to see who could tiptoe the furthest out from conservative orthodoxy without causing mutiny. And on the other hand, while we're talking about Senate buddies, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz have a friendship based at least in part to their fealty to the Constitution and limited government. They have established track records as good guys.

But it could be that this was an informative briefing carried out by arrogant boneheads. One of those both-of-these-things-are-true situations.

And Lee didn't go so far as to say that a commander in chief like the Very Stable Genius needs procedural oversight due to his inherently erratic nature, but I will. Trump got the zapping of Suleimani right. But there's no way to tell if he'll get the next step in dealing with Iran right, or the one after that.

Now, having said that, I think Lee and anyone so concerned ought to be very careful about what kind of procedural oversight they sign on to. There are a lot of Dems who are trotting out the old peacenik ethos just to make sure they're on the opposite page from Trump. I'd want to see the fine print on Kaine's proposal.

When nearly everyone involved in policy-making is absolutely nuts, it's hard to see a clear path to a wise way forward.