The U.S. intervention in Libya’s civil war, intervention that began with a surplus of confusion about capabilities and a shortage of candor about objectives, is now taking a toll on the rule of law. In a bipartisan cascade of hypocrisies, a liberal president, with the collaborative silence of most congressional conservatives, is traducing the War Powers Resolution.
Let's not gloss over the silence of congressional liberals and anti-war leftists just to highlight the fact that most congressional conservatives are willing to back even a liberal president at war--rising above politics, you might even say. Those conservatives are at least being consistent.
And while I do think the war powers act is unconstitutional and unnecessary given the Congressional power of the purse (and so an attempt to avoid the responsibility of carrying out that power by having automatic cutoffs rather than putting Congress' fingerprints on a forced end to a war), past presidents have, as Will noted, "acted consistent with" the provisions of the act even as they denied it compelled them to comply with the act's deadlines.
But no matter. This president is a liberal. With a Nobel Peace Prize. And he is a Democrat, most importantly. So obviously this president is above the law, to answer Will's query. President Obama can apply his health care law--or not--to favor friends, and wage something less than a war-war when he says it isn't really a war.
I'm sure presidential lawyers are working up memos arguing that by failing to explicitly call for an end to the war, Congress implicitly approves it. Expect that to come out right about 90 days from the start of the war.
Is the American media going to call President Obama on any of this and risk a Republican in the White House in 2013? Of course not. Really, if war coverage follows economic news coverage, in summer 2012, the press corps be talking about how we "unexpectedly" remain at
