The Founders Feared an Imperial President

Yeah, I'm kind of lazy and in a bad mood today so...I'm not much in a thinking mood. So the whole post will be a roundup of interesting stuff from the past couple days.

Presidential Power
Just what the Founders Feared: An Imperial President Goes to War -

Adam Cohen does fine work in this piece.

The nation is heading toward a constitutional showdown over the Iraq war. Congress is moving closer to passing a bill to limit or end the war, but President Bush insists Congress doesn't have the power to do it. "I don't think Congress ought to be running the war," he said at a recent press conference. "I think they ought to be funding the troops." He added magnanimously: "I'm certainly interested in their opinion."

The war is hardly the only area where the Bush administration is trying to expand its powers beyond all legal justification. But the danger of an imperial presidency is particularly great when a president takes the nation to war, something the founders understood well. In the looming showdown, the founders and the Constitution are firmly on Congress's side.

What Bush wants and expects is a rubberstamp from Congress. As if he has ALL the power: To declare war, wage war, determine when to exit, and Congress simply provides funding. Oh no, not only does it provide funding, but it cannot use the powers of the purse as leverage to enforce its will or coerce the president to change policy.

Reality check Mr. President: Congress has the power to declare war, to ratify peace, to maintain, fund, and regulate, the armed forces of the US, and the Founders gave the Congress its funding powers precisely because it wanted to give the Legislature that leverage in order to check the power of the president (and the courts).

Given how intent the president is on expanding his authority, it is startling to recall how the Constitution's framers viewed presidential power. They were revolutionaries who detested kings, and their great concern when they established the United States was that they not accidentally create a kingdom. To guard against it, they sharply limited presidential authority, which Edmund Randolph, a Constitutional Convention delegate and the first attorney general, called "the foetus of monarchy."

The founders were particularly wary of giving the president power over war. They were haunted by Europe's history of conflicts started by self-aggrandizing kings.

I liked this snippet

The Constitution does make the president "commander in chief," a title President Bush often invokes. But it does not have the sweeping meaning he suggests. The framers took it from the British military, which used it to denote the highest-ranking official in a theater of battle. Alexander Hamilton emphasized in Federalist No. 69 that the president would be "nothing more" than "first general and admiral," responsible for "command and direction" of military forces.

The founders would have been astonished by President Bush's assertion that Congress should simply write him blank checks for war. They gave Congress the power of the purse so it would have leverage to force the president to execute their laws properly.

Mr. Cohen makes a great point on what the term "Commander-in-Chief" means, and how it is abused by this President in order to give him much more expansive powers than is rightfully his under the Consitutution. The man thinks he can strike Iran and Congress can in no way legislate or impede his ability to do so because it conflicts with his powers of commander in chief. But as Cohen notes: Commander-in-Chiefs is the highest officer and can execute wars already declared. But the Commander-in-Chief and thus the President does NOT have the authority to unilaterally and without the assent of Congress initiate war. Nor can he officially ratify Peace after a Conflict.

Those powers go to Congress. It is they who have legitimate right to dictate and determine when we go in and also they have a role to play in determining when we leave. And the power of the purse is but one of the consitutional arms given to Congress in order to enforce its prerogative on the President. COngress role is not simply to ruberstamp funding requests.

Give it a good read, its not that long.
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Roundup

It seems our diplomacy around the world has been suffering due to the overriding attentions that Iraq garners from our leaders.

At a time in which it is essential for the US to be mending fences and engaging in some global diplomacy, it is instead doing all it can to snub the entire world. And, as we ignore and snub nations in SE Asia, in Africa, and in Latin America, we also will see more an more nations turning away from the US. China, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela meanwhile do not hesitate to try their hand at diplomacy and "soft-power" and are making may inroads in all those regions.

Its not a zero-sum game so not all gains my these nations means it is to the detriment of the US, but its negligence of these regions is certainly reducing its influence in those regions and providing great opportunities for China and others to fill the gaps. We ignore the world at our own peril...
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Bush's incompetence gives Al-Qaeda new life- (Salon) ....Yeah, tell me about it

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Did we say September? I meant "NextSummer" *cough*

Unless Congress acts now or in September, it will come and go and the President will just keep moving that goal post back....and back some more. "Did we say September"? Who didn't see this coming?

A revised U.S. military plan envisions establishing security at the local level in Baghdad and elsewhere by next summer, it likely would take another year to get Iraqi forces ready to enforce any newfound stability, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

Known as the Joint Campaign Plan, developed in tandem by Gen. David Petraeus and his political counterpart in Baghdad, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, it reflects a timetable starkly at odds with the push by many in Congress to wind down U.S. involvement in a matter of months.

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Iraq Insurgent Groups Unite - Against Al-Qaeda and the US -

Seven of the most important Sunni-led insurgent organisations fighting the US occupation in Iraq have agreed to form a public political alliance with the aim of preparing for negotiations in advance of an American withdrawal, their leaders have told the Guardian.

In their first interview with the western media since the US-British invasion of 2003, leaders of three of the insurgent groups - responsible for thousands of attacks against US and Iraqi armed forces and police - made clear that they would continue their armed resistance until all foreign troops were withdrawn from Iraq, and denounced al-Qaida for sectarian killings and suicide bombings against civilians. (snip)

Leaders of the three groups - who did not use their real names in the interview - said the new front, which brings together all the main Sunni-based armed organisations except al-Qaida and the Ba'athists, has agreed the main planks of a joint political programme, including a commitment to free Iraq from all foreign troops, rejection of any cooperation with parties involved in the political institutions set up under the occupation, and a declaration that all decisions and agreements made by the US occupation and Iraqi government are null and void.

The aim of the alliance - which includes a range of Islamist and nationalist-leaning groups and is currently called the Political Office for the Iraqi Resistance - is to link up with other anti-occupation groups in Iraq to negotiate with the Americans in anticipation of an early US withdrawal. The programme envisages a temporary technocratic government to run the country during a transition period until free elections can be held.

Like I said, even most Sunni insurgents have no love for Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Once we leave they will not take over the country. They want the US out...that's their friction with the US...its very presence in Iraq. It certaintly is a positive sign that they plan to hold talks with the US, but I seriously doubt that the transition from US occupation to free-Iraq will go that smooth. Although they claim to not be against working with Shia groups, they say they will not deal with Shia militias and groups because of their affiliation with this Iraqi government who they see as a puppet and embodyment of the US occupation.

In essence: Which Shia will they be OK dealing with? Who is left?

I don't know. At this point I still see a lot of chaos and civil war raging when the US leave...nothing so far tells me otherwise but you never know what kind of accomodation can be reached between now and our withdrawal.

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And speaking of pulling our troops out...
Democrats vow to continue pressing ahead for US withdrawal from Iraq -

Good luck, and I mean that. It's going to be a bitch fighting Republican obstuction in the Senate in the form of the Filibuster.

They are, after all, on track to be the highest-filibustering most-obstructionist party in US history.

That's the Republican Party for ya!

Plus they have the gal to criticize Democrats for not being able to get things done!

It's like someone breaking you leg and then critcizing you for not being able to walk correctly.