‘The president is not a king’

January 9, 2007

There seems to be no shortage of confusion about what Congress can and should do about the president’s intention to escalate the war in Iraq. Dems being Dems, there are no shortages of opinions, most of them contradictory, and plenty of internal squabbling over just how much power the new congressional majority really has.

The new Democratic majority in Congress is divided over how to assert its power in opposing President Bush’s plan to send more troops to Baghdad, as leaders explore ways to block financing for a military expansion without being accused of abandoning American forces already in Iraq.

While Democrats find themselves unusually united in their resistance to a troop increase, party leaders are locked in an internal debate over how far to go in objecting to the administration’s Iraq strategy.

The most common refrain seems to be that of Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) who argued that it’d be “unconstitutional” to “micromanage” the president’s handling of the war in Iraq, and that the Senate could, at the most, focus on public opinion by voting on a “resolution of disapproval.” Since then, however, this notion has been debunked. Repeatedly.

Georgetown’s Marty Lederman explained that Congress absolutely has the power to “correct the executive’s mistakes,” especially when it comes to misuse of the military, and that lawmakers could pass a measure setting troop caps, deployment deadlines, or both.

Former White House constitutional advisor Neil Kinkopf argued the same thing, as did Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.). For that matter, as Brad Plumer noted, “[T]his seems like a rather odd time for key congressional Democrats to be taking a dim view of their own institutional powers, no?” Quite right.

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) will offer a very reasonable solution to this today, requiring Bush to gain new congressional authority before sending more troops to Iraq. As the NYT put it, “The Kennedy plan is intended to provide Democrats with a road map for how to proceed in Iraq. Mr. Kennedy … recalled that Congress interceded during conflicts in Vietnam and Lebanon, and he said Democrats should not hesitate to do so in Iraq.”

Josh Marshall, as he is prone to do, summarized the big picture nicely. The establishment’s rhetoric about an unlimited presidential power on the military ignores the fact that “democracy matters.”

The constitution gives the president great power and latitude in the exercise of his war powers. But not exclusive power. The president is not a king. Anybody who knows anything about the US constitution knows that it was designed specifically so that the president’s need to get the Congress to finance his wars would be an effective break on the vast power he holds as commander-in-chief. […]

The way this is ‘supposed’ to work is that when the president takes a dramatic new direction like this he consults with Congress. That way, some relative range of agreement can be worked out through consultation. National unity is great. Or at least that’s the theory. But here we have a case where the president’s party has just been thrown out of power in Congress largely, though not exclusively, because the public is fed up with the president’s lies and failures abroad. (Indeed, at this point, what else does the Republican party stand for but corruption at home and failure abroad? Small government? Please.) The public now believes the war was a mistake. Decisive numbers believe we should start the process of leaving Iraq. And the public is overwhelmingly against sending more troops to the country. The country’s foreign policy establishment (much derided, yes, but look at the results) is also overwhelmingly against escalation.

And yet, with all this, the president has ignored the Congress, not consulted the 110th Congress in any real way, has ignored the now longstanding views of the majority of the country’s citizens and wants to plow ahead with an expansion of his own failed and overwhelmingly repudiated policy. The need for Congress to assert itself in such a case transcends the particulars of Iraq policy. It’s important to confirm the democratic character of the state itself. The president is not a king. He is not a Stuart. And one more Hail Mary pass for George W. Bush’s legacy just isn’t a good enough reason for losing more American lives, treasure and prestige.

Get to work, Congress. You have power. Use it.

As the Dems are preparing to do what they do well — hold hearings — it seems some enterprising young sub-committee chair could through together some CSPAN worthy hearings on the power of Congress to restrict the President. All testimony under oath, of course.

  • Stem cell bills & Minimum wage bills are all fine & tummy-warming, but how the Dems deal with Iraq in the first 100 hours will be the true test of whether we need a 3rd party in this country. We’re right behind you, Rep. Jack & Sen. Ted, lead on…

  • Ohioan, I disagree that this issue is going to be easy to solve. The 100 hrs agenda is a raft of ideas that are overwhelmingly popular, but which have been blocked by the Republicrooks. Passing them is a good way to make progress that has been held up, and set the tone of the 110th.

    There is no overwhelmingly popular solution to the Iraq war yet, so it will take awhile for the Dems to formulate one (if they can). Maybe after the new NIE comes out, or after a few hearings on intelligence manipulation, the Dems will be able to justify to the majority of America their only serious option (cutting off the funds to Bush’s war).

  • It is time we took our America back. Congress should get busy and do what they have to do to stop more troops in Iraq. We need to bring our troop home NOW. Impeach Cheney, Bush and his admin.

    Bush went into this war for OIL. The three big oil companies are getting a 30 year contract that the Iraq government has to vote on. I am totally out raged about this.

    Why are we going to give them money for jobs over there? We need to take care of our American citizens not other countries.

  • Enough of this it’d be “unconstitutional” to “micromanage” self-serving bullshit. The Democrats achieved their overwhelming victories last November by promising to bring our troops out of the Quagmire which the Bush Crime Family found it profitable to lead them into. All public opinion polls show that. Democrats should not allow their personal cowardice and fear to deflect them from what the American voters elected them to do.

    People who believe outsiders can “win” in an intertribal/religious conflict don’t understand tribal society. In short, they don’t know what they’re talking about. The most you can hope for is a strongman, like Saddam or Tito, to bury the intergroup hatred for a brief time (tribal memories and hatreds go back thousands of years). That or sufficient geographic subdivision that every tribal nuance has its own piece of sovereign territory to rule.

    Why we’re still listening to a bunch of crooks and hasbeens who have no respect for our Constitution or our voting process, who are so obviously ignorant of tribal/religious societies, who have given themselves unheard of wealth while bankrupting our middle classes and indebting us to China, who have ignored all professional military experience and advice, and who probably couldn’t get it up if they had to … is beyond me. I hate to believe we’re that TeeVee or drug addled that we’re no longer capable of democratically governing ourselves (I think last November’s vote, and the initial Democratic policies, proved we are capable, but I’m beginning to doubt).

    We should change, not our tactics but our strategy: come home NOW and crank up the Impeachment and Conviction machinery, then contact the Hague Court about War Crimes trials and, domestically, see about hearing/trials over War Profiteering. And to hell with “respect for the presidency”. The current occupant and his cronies are pissing all over the presidency.

  • Realistically, there is very little the Democrats can do to stop the President from doing whatever he wants. Even if they passed a bill, there is no way they could overirde a veto.

    So, all the Democrats have is a public forum to discuss their position.

    From a political point of view the democrats should be able to turn this into a win/win situation.

    If the Democrats state a position different from the President then either the President is correct and the country is better off or the President is not correct and the Democrats can claim that they gave the President what he wanted (because they couldn’t stop him from doing what he wanted anyway) and the situation was still all screwed up because the President’s management of the war has been terrible from the start.

    PS it is a real pain in the ass to get a post to be accepted.

  • The “sectarian violence” will have to play itself out — the US doesn’t have any control over it.

    I like Senator Kennedy’s solution best — a law that would require Bush to seek the approval of Congress before he’s allowed to send any more troops into Iraq, with an introductory statement reminding us all that only Congress can declare war, not a president, to point to their authority to stop Bush’s actions in Iraq.

    I’m one who’d take a really hard line, since I believe it was an illegal invasion from the beginning, and the repercussions were warned about, including civil war. To really take back their authority, Congress in the same law could give a required date of final withdrawal, with dates for units in specific regions to pack up their bags and leave, Baghdad first, and then outward from the capital from there, including all those bases and the embassy. Destroy any remaining weapons and vehicles that can’t be brought home. Better abandon those projects and the money already spent than spend more in cash, lives, and our reputation and be driven out later.

    There’s no way to win our way out of this tragedy.

  • One of the solutions suggested during the Vietnam War was to “declare victory and get out.” The same thing could be done in Iraq. I have heard it suggested that Congress gave Bush approval for this war, so they cannot infringe on his authority as commander in chief. Congress gave Bush the authority to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein. Our military achieved that handily several years ago and Saddam is now dead. Victory! End of Congressional authorization.

  • Bush used to style himself as the “CEO President”, so let’s put this debate in business terms:

    What return has the American people gotten from their nearly-$400 billion investment in Iraq?

    And why should the American people invest more capital (i.e., debt to our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren) into Iraq?

    And lastly, did you keep the receipts?

  • The Congress needs to do whatever it takes and make Bush prove that what the congress is doing is unconstitutional. It the balance of powers had been this out of whack in the 70’s we would still be in Vietnam.

  • #3 – Racerx:

    I never implied that Iraq would be easy to solve. But the response to Bush’s speech has to be forceful and front and center in the Agenda, that’s all…

  • The President seems to think that he has constitutional powers granted to him as commander-in-chief during a time of war. The problem with that is that until Congress declares war, we are not at war and the President does not have any extra-legal powers that may have been granted to him during a time of war. And Congress has not declared war, have they?

  • William Saletan at Slate wrote an interesting piece in 1999 which discusses the Republican reaction to Clinton’s involvement in Kosovo. Here are a few choice bits.

    DeLay… voted not only against last week’s House resolution authorizing Clinton to conduct the air war–which failed on a tie vote–but also in favor of legislation “directing the president … to remove U.S. Armed Forces from their positions in connection with the present operations against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.” When asked whether he had lobbied his colleagues to defeat the resolution authorizing the air war, as had been reported, DeLay conceded that he had “talked to a couple of members during the vote” but claimed not to have swayed anyone since it was “a vote of conscience.”
    […]
    DeLay agreed: “He’s stronger in Kosovo now than he was before the bombing. … The Serbian people are rallying around him like never before. He’s much stronger with his allies, Russians and others.” Clinton “has no plan for the end” and “recognizes that Milosevic will still be in power,” added DeLay. “The bombing was a mistake. … And this president ought to show some leadership and admit it, and come to some sort of negotiated end.”
    […]
    The president ought to open up negotiations and come to some sort of diplomatic end.” Lott implored Clinton to “give peace a chance” and, comparing the war with the recent Colorado high-school shootings, urged him to resolve the Kosovo conflict with “words, not weapons.”
    […]
    DeLay suggested that the United States should pull out unilaterally: “When Ronald Reagan saw that he had made a mistake putting our soldiers in Lebanon … he admitted the mistake, and he withdrew from Lebanon.”

  • In 1999 a bipartisan group of Congressmen sued Clinton over the Kosovo war. Read about this about the suit filed by this odd group which included Kucinich, Barr and Burton at Salon.(For some reason there is no need to get a day pass to read this article.)

  • The failure at this point of the Iraq conflict is the complete and utter dereliction of diplomacy to seek a peaceful resolution. Arm twisting al Maliki is not diplomacy. The Dems need to tie a rider onto any further troop level manipulations of peace talks among the warring parties. Take them all to Cairo, to Paris, to Moscow, but put all the parties fighting in Iraq at a table and begin the mediation process.

    The Democratic leadership needs to recognize that this is their moment and they need to seize it. If the public sees they are unwilling to do anything substantive, then that creeping sense of Dems being no better than Repubs will sink into the collective consciousness of the nation. Leadership has to emerge from the party and strike while the iron is hot.

  • Bush Jr. remembers what happened to “Dear Old Dad” after the first Iraq escapade—everything concentrated on the domestic side of the agenda, and Papa went down in flames. Right now, “the boy” (written in a Homer Simpson-esque kind of way) needs to keep the war going, in order to placate his half-base of bloodthirsty saber-rattlers—sort of a “smite the Philistines” thing that’s always good to rally the theocratic reactionaries, and his other half-base—the corporate war profiteers.

    Take away the war, and you take away what’s left of his base. Take away the war, and you take away a big portion of his support on the Hill. Take away the war—and you place the remaining 25% of this administration’s time on Earth “in Harm’s way”—

    —Which is exactly why this war should be terminated. The best—and probably the only—way to begin the process of cleaning out the White House is to end the war.

    And the Bush/Cheney regime know this all too well….

  • Thomas Ware,

    What part of “check”, as in “checks and balances”, do the democrats not understand?

    apparently the same part that the Republicans do “not” understand. See comment # 14 above. Look to Lott and DeLay for your answers.

  • It’s interesting that the conflicts in Lebanon and Vietnam are used as examples of Congress “meddling” in prosecution of a war. We lost both of those conflicts. The reason Congress has not declared war since WWII is simply one of cowardice. “I voted for the use of force” is a lot easier to wiggle away from than actually declaring war. It is this sort of squid like behavior that prevents the United States from conclusively ending this conflict. Our military is quite capable of ending this insurgency, and putting an end to the sectarian violence. Unfortunately, they are being hamstrung by politics at home. You don’t win a fight with your shoes tied together, one hand stuck in your pocket, leading with your chin, and constantly asking the committee behind you if you should throw a jab or uppercut. Regardless of your feelings about the validity/legality/morality of this war, it is imperative to unrestrain the combatant and let him/her win. If you don’t, you are as responsible for the blood on the floor as the guy who started the whole thing.
    Kennedy is attempting to pass a bill that is inherently unconstitutional in order to provide the democrats with cover from political fall out. If he was firmly for ending this conflict, then he would draft legislation that had firm withdraw dates for the troops, an end to the funding, and stop additional troop deployments. Although it would never get past a veto, it would at least show the American people that the Democrats really oppose the war in Iraq, and aren’t just looking for reelection.

    Joe (Vet, Independent Voter, United States Citizen )

  • There are good points in your article. I would like to supplement them with some information:

    I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak.

    If you are interested in a view of the inside of the Pentagon procurement process from Vietnam to Iraq please check the posting at my blog entitled, “Odyssey of Armaments”

    http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2006/11/odyssey-of-armaments.html

    The Pentagon is a giant, incredibly complex establishment, budgeted in excess of $500B per year. The Rumsfelds, the Administrations and the Congressmen come and go but the real machinery of policy and procurement keeps grinding away, presenting the politicos who arrive with detail and alternatives slanted to perpetuate itself.

    How can any newcomer, be he a President, a Congressman or even the new Sec. Def.Mr. Gates, understand such complexity, particularly if heretofore he has not had the clearance to get the full details?

    Answer- he can’t. Therefore he accepts the alternatives provided by the career establishment that never goes away and he hopes he makes the right choices. Or he is influenced by a lobbyist or two representing companies in his district or special interest groups.

    From a practical standpoint, policy and war decisions are made far below the levels of the talking heads who take the heat or the credit for the results.

    This situation is unfortunate but it is absolute fact. Take it from one who has been to war and worked in the establishment.

    This giant policy making and war machine will eventually come apart and have to be put back together to operate smaller, leaner and on less fuel. But that won’t happen until it hits a brick wall at high speed.

    We will then have to run a Volkswagen instead of a Caddy and get along somehow. We better start practicing now and get off our high horse. Our golden aura in the world is beginning to dull from arrogance.

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