President Obama has gotten a lot of heat from both sides for authorizing airstrikes in Libya following U.N. Resolution 1973 without actually requesting authorization from Congress first.
There's both ample bipartisan precedent for initiating military action absent explicit authorization from Congress, and as Jack Goldsmith points out, there's plenty of textual ambiguity about what the president's powers are here.
Most people arguing that the intervention is unconstitutional can fit into one of two categories -- people who think America should fight fewer wars and those who are doing so out of partisan pique. If the situation were reversed, we could comfortably slot both the current president and vice president into the latter category.
As someone who thinks American leaders should start fewer wars and be more judicious about which wars the U.S. does choose to fight, I'm a fan of requiring congressional authorization for military actions that aren't explicitly acts of self defense and have as much clear lead time as this one did. Even if it doesn't end up reducing military intervention overall, it might force future presidents to think more critically about the use of force.
