House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record)'s visit to Iraq is a clear sign the newly empowered Democratic Congress is not going to abide by the notion that foreign policy is the sole province of the White House.
Not just foreign policy, but the conduct of a war. Congress surely has a role in foreign policy--even in legislating conditions for certain executive actions. But Pelosi has not gone to Iraq regarding most favored nation status. Or the future of American bases. She is there because we fight there and she doesn't want us to be there. The article doesn't know where the notion came from that this in the sole province of the White House.
Yes, where might that notion that the President is responsible have arisen?
Could it be, oh I don't know, our constitution? Perhaps Article II, Section 2:
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States
Well, it is good to know early that breaching the marble ceiling involves violating the constitution. What some might call our list of inviolate notions.
But at least that wasn't part of the first hundred hours of her reign.
