by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math
This past Wednesday at TPMCafe, Steve Clemons highlighted a bipartisan pow-wow of foreign policy luminaries seeking to clarify constitutional question relating to "War Powers". Considering the substantial changes in warfare and war-like activities since the writing of the US Constitution, which among other things does not assume that the country will have a standing Army during peacetime, taking a second look at exactly how much (or little) power the President ought to have to engage in hostile actions without Congressional approval seems long overdue. One can hope that as the unwinding of the Bush administration occurs over the next decade, some bright people in Washington might try to figure out a constitutional order that gives a stronger hand to peaceniks in the face of a needlessly belligerent President.
