Speaking to a crowd of general contractors yesterday about his showdown with the U.S. Congress, George W. Bush expounded on his views about presidential authority:
The question is, ‘Who ought to make that decision, the Congress or the commanders?,’’ Mr. Bush said. “As you know, my position is clear – I’m the commander guy.”
SAUL LOEB/AFP
He's being mocked pretty widely in the blogosphere for this rather unsophisticated formulation, but it's not as if he's wrong: Article II of the U.S. Constitution explicitly states that the president "shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States." The Constitution also grants Congress the explicit authority to "declare war" and "to raise and support armies."
So once the military is in the field, it's the president who calls the shots. You know, he's the commander guy. But Congress has the clear authority to cut the funds if it disagrees with the president's policy. The balance of powers becomes a lot murkier, however, when Congress tries to get fancy, as it has done in trying to set a deadline for the start of the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
So why didn't the Democrats do as legal scholar Bruce Ackerman recommended and use the power of the purse? As prominent Democratic Senator Joe Biden put the matter back in February (pdf), "from my experience here back to the Vietnam era, that is a very dicey, difficult, troublesome, and not at all an ennobling experience that unites people very well." Another way of saying this would be, "We don't want the Republicans to be able to accuse us of defunding the troops." And so we have the present impasse and a divided Democratic caucus. Counterinsurgencies take years to win, not months. But unless Iraq miraculously begins to turn around soon, though, expect Republicans in Congress to get very, very antsy about the 2008 elections. The commander guy's veto won't save his policy if and when that happens. So what's Bush going to do?
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