Oh, THAT Constitution!

McBride writes:

Assaulting the Constitution

Russ Feingold wants to censure the president:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold said Sunday he wants Congress to censure President Bush for his management of the Iraq war and his "assault" against the Constitution.

Maybe he should just censure Congress for its "assault" against the Constitution by meddling in the commander in chief's executive powers to manage the Iraq war. I don't think the Founding Fathers envisioned this many generals controlling the battlefield.

Actually, the Founding Fathers envisoned Congress making the decisions about taking this country to war.

Adam Cohen explains in today's New York Times:

...The war is hardly the only area where the Bush administration is trying to expand its powers beyond all legal justification. But the danger of an imperial presidency is particularly great when a president takes the nation to war, something the founders understood well. In the looming showdown, the founders and the Constitution are firmly on Congress’s side...

When they drafted the Constitution, Madison and his colleagues wrote their skepticism into the text. In Britain, the king had the authority to declare war, and raise and support armies, among other war powers. The framers expressly rejected this model and gave these powers not to the president, but to Congress...

The founders would have been astonished by President Bush’s assertion that Congress should simply write him blank checks for war. They gave Congress the power of the purse so it would have leverage to force the president to execute their laws properly...

Members of Congress should not be intimidated into thinking that they are overstepping their constitutional bounds. If the founders were looking on now, it is not Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who would strike them as out of line, but George W. Bush, who would seem less like a president than a king.