“Syria right now has kind of paralyzed the town,” said David Plouffe, a former senior Obama adviser. “They’ll wait until the dust clears.”
An administration official said Obama hasn’t yet decided whom he will nominate for the Fed chairmanship. The official, who requested anonymity because the deliberations are private, declined to discuss the potential timing of an announcement.
Obama is mounting a full-court press to win support from members of Congress for authorization to attack Syria over what the administration says is the regime’s use of chemical weapons. Even as he traveled overseas to meetings with leaders in Sweden and Russia, he was making phone calls to senators and canceled a planned trip to California next week to focus on lobbying.
The Senate plans to begin debating an authorization resolution when it returns from its five-week break on Sept. 9. House leaders don’t plan to begin consideration until after a Senate vote, according to a House aide. That opens the possibility that the congressional debate on Syria will drag on until the week of Sept. 16.
