Come on now...

Bush asked for approval to use force after all forms of diplomacy had been exhausted. (Clinton, among others, said after her vote that she took W on his word in regards to diplomacy-silly her.)

Once W got that vote, he kicked the inspectors out of Iraq and went in with guns blazing. He said it wouldn't be "prudent" for UN inspectors to stick around. All built of course on the WMD lie.

Obama is within his Constitutional rights to use force without Congressional approval right now if he so chooses, yet he has sent it to The House to kick around instead. I think he knows damn well they aren't going to green light anything he wants to do and I doubt he ever intended to "attack" Syria. This has been big talk, muscle flexing upfront with an ultimate goal of diplomacy on the backend. And that appears to precisely be what we're going to end up with.

You better believe though, that if he had adopted a more isolationist approach that the right wing would have attacked him for being soft after the alleged chemical weapons attack.