Obama:"What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds ... and pay no price?", Obama's inconsistencies and blame Congress strategy

As I have noted in a previous post, UN Mideast envoy Robert Serry told the Security Council has already told the council that there have been 13 reported uses of chemical weapons in Syria.  Why is the 13th time crossing the "red line" the crucial step?  Obviously, Obama seems to be trying to set it up so that he can blame Congress, but shouldn't he have consulted with them before making the threats?  Indeed, up through Friday, the administration was indicating that it was going through with the war without consulting Congress, just as he hadn't consulted congress with respect to Libya.  Here is a text of Obama's statement. 

while I believe I have the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization, I know that the country will be stronger if we take this course, and our actions will be even more effective. We should have this debate, because the issues are too big for business as usual. And this morning, John Boehner, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell agreed that this is the right thing to do for our democracy. . . . 

Here’s my question for every member of Congress and every member of the global community: What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price? 

Chuck Todd has this interesting discussion after Obama's talk on Saturday.

White House aides said they are fairly confident that Congress will grant them the authority to launch a strike, although they maintain that Obama would be acting within his constitutional authority even if Congress rejects the authorization and Obama orders military intervention. . . . 

The administration decided not to call them back early due to the Jewish holidays this week, a delay that the Pentagon also signed off on, saying that the wait won’t diminish U.S. military capabilities in the region. There’s an upside to that cooling-off period too, aides said. . . . 

Obama may still go forward with the attack even if Congress doesn't grant him the authority?  Is that right?  In addition, the fact that the U.S. military says that its ability to successfully attack Syria won't diminish after a month is not the same thing that it is wise to wait that long.  For example, our ability to lob a few cruise missiles into Syria and hit the targets that we want might  be significantly degraded if Syria has a month to move assets around.

UPDATE: Larry Elder has a very useful piece available here.  See also this.