WSJ Pooh-Poohs "Kucinich Republicans" & Other Congressfolks Who Have Read the Constitution…
An unsigned WSJ editorial lays into "Kucinich Republicans" who went wobbly went it comes to rubber-stamping any and all presidential interventions into distant lands. Eight-seven Republicans (including such fire-burping hawks as cantaloupe-shooting, bastard-siring Dan Burton of Indiana), complains the Journal, became situational isolationists simply because a Dem is in the White House. They voted for a resolution by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) that would end the "kinetic military action" in Libya because Barack Obama has shown no interest in following constitutional procedure when it come to waging war.
The Kucinich resolution failed, 265-148, but only after Speaker John Boehner offered his own alternative resolution that demanded no deployment of ground troops and rebuked Mr. Obama for failing to provide "a compelling rationale" for the Libyan conflict and giving him 14 days to provide one—or, well, nothing. Mr. Boehner's resolution passed 268-145, but it is little better than Mr. Kucinich's as a demonstration of House commitment to U.S. forces in the field.
As a spokesman for Secretary of Defense Robert Gates put it during the Libya debate, the vote "sends an unhelpful message of disunity and uncertainty to our troops, our allies and, most importantly, the Gadhafi regime." The esteemed Members want to vote against the war, without actually taking responsibility for stopping it….
If Mr. Obama won't defend his office, then Republicans ought to. This is what Mitch McConnell and John McCain are doing in the Senate, and it would be useful if some of the GOP Presidential candidates spoke up in the same way. Mr. Obama deserves criticism for his uncertain war resolve, and for tying himself down, like Gulliver, with a weak U.N. Security Council resolution and Arab League permission to act. But this is no excuse for tying his hands further at home in a way that will only increase the price of victory.
Let's leave aside whether your position on bombing Libya while leading NATO from behind has anything to do with hawk or dove status. You don't need to be the real Bob Taft or Bob Dole to start muttering about "Democrat wars."
It's a sad day for the Republic when insisting that the president actually, you know, get an authorization of force as kinda sorta suggested by the Constitution is seen as akin to open rebellion or creating a fifth column. What is this, Star Wars? Rome? As Tim Cavanaugh and that other super-peacenik outfit, the Washington Times, point out, between Kucinich's and Boehner's all-too-timid requests, three-quarters of the House of Representatives have expressed dissatisfaction when it comes to how Obama is deploying troops. The only real question is when Congress is going to take the advice of good ol' Sharron Angle and man up already and start playing its actual role as a counterweight to an imperial presidency that has never served the nation any good.
Reason.tv on Obama's War That Isn't a War: