QOTD: Bob Menendez

QOTD: Bob Menendez

by digby

On the congress asserting its responsibility to approve the president's War on Isis:

I think what we have done is lay down a marker as the parameters. The AUMF that we passed out of the committee gives the president the wherewithal to do everything he is doing right now, plus. But what it doesn't do is give him or any future president a blank check. And I think that is an important check and balance. 

And any president who comes to them in the future will also get  "the wherewithal to do everything he is doing, plus." They always do. 

I appreciate this fealty to the notion that we need check and balances on presidential power to wage war. It's a very lovely concept. But while dotting your constitutional Is and crossing your constitutional Ts is important, it's not the most important issue --the war itself is. I think we waste a whole lot of time worrying about the president usurping congressional power and not enough about what the congress and the president are actually doing.

I'd love to see more independence in the congress on this issue. Maybe putting an emphasis on their responsibility here will make them take it seriously over time.  But I've never seen it happen yet and I'm sorry to be so cynical but as long as our endless war on terrorism continues, I don't think we will.  This is one of the purposes of the Long Wars like the Cold War and the GWOT.  The incentives in a nation that's on a permanent war footing with an economy organized around "defense" are all skewed in one direction. We end up putting on a constitutional pageant rather than actual governance. The wars go on, one way or another.

.

.