wow, pitiful to learn that folks on this site don't hold Dems accountable

as I just learned from the slew of responses from y'all who don't recognize that it was unconstitutional for Congress to abdicate its autority to wage war. I really thought that that was a given already. (not that some folks on here don't get that).

constitutionally it appears to be a dead issue.

when necessary. It seems to be the repubs who NEVER doubt their leader.

Whether Congress did or did not abdicate its Constitutional duty regarding the waging of war is irrelevant to the issue of whether Bush broke the law. Period.

Bush broke the law. What Democrats did or didn't do has no bearing on that fact. Nor does it have any effect on impeaching Bush. Look, if I steal your car and you come over and beat me with a tire iron, guess what? You're still going to jail. Now I may (and should) go to jail, too. But they are separate issues, even though they are far more closely tied than Bush's and the Democrats' actions. Your reasoning is egregiously wrong.

did not live up to the same standard. you have it backwards.

Not that I think the two are comparable, but even if they were, one does not excuse the other, and continually bringing it up, in the way that you are is rovian distraction tactics.

IMHO.

party affiliation. When Dems make bad decisions, they quite often are called on the carpet around here, especially when they do things contrary to our values.

Cooked Up BS Intel and Destroyed the Career of a CIA Agent Along The Way" did you miss in the last few months?

Also Google Wesley Clark Meet The Press Rumsfeld Breifing Generals WMD and you will come up with an interview with General Clark talking about how he was briefed by rumsfeld showing exactly where the WMDs were and how convincing the breifing was.

THEY WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO GIVE HIM A BLANK CHECK. HE WAS SUPPOSED TO COME BACK TO CONGRESS!!!! IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN WRITING THAT HE WOULD HAVE TO COME BACK. Not just in good faith.

In this administration, however, it is shear folly.

:hi:

He didn't have to come back to Congress. Aren't you thinking of the UN Security Council resolution where the US didn't come back for a final authorization?

Read Senator Byrd's latest book, I think it's called Losing America. His main point is that Congress these days is far too ready to abdicate responsibility for the very functions the Constitution charges it with. Congress is supposed to be the body which declares wars; it gives it up to the president. Congress is supposed to regulate government expenses; it writes huge blank checks to the president and encourages him to spend it according to his personal discretion, however he sees fit. These are actions that Congress has taken, yet its decision to do so reflects a serious failure on its part to fulfill its Constitutional duties.

it should have declared war. But it did pass a resolution explicitly authorizing the use of force, like it or not. I don't think it's a proper procedure but it is the accepted one.

But there are limits to what even Congress may legally do. For instance, if they pass an unconstitutional law, they've exceeded their authority. Likewise, if they attempt to give the president powers that the president is not constitutionally entitled to have, once again, they're attempting to do something unlawful and the decision should be understood to carry no legal weight and they deserve to be rebuked for having tried it in the first place. I'm not sure, but I don't think it lies within Congress' discretion to decide "oh, we don't feel like fulfilling our constitutional obligations, so we'll just hand them over to somebody else to do for us." I don't know, but it certainly seems like there ought to be something unlawful about that.

I don't believe this person was a Wes Clark supporter.

I think his agenda was to disrupt, period.

Smelled all along. Pee-yew!!

are so on a mission to bash Dems. And with such weird arguments. :eyes:

Surprised he lasted this long.

I don't see it.

Congress pretty much let the Presidents decide to wage war throughout the Cold War. There were simply so many armed conflicts going on at times in which Americans were involved in all kinds of ways against all kinds of opponents- states, rebels, guerillas, tribes- that there is something silly about solemn, grandiose, ceremonial declarations of war. The War On Terror falls into this category, whatever your particular opinion of its true nature.

So, what is living in the nineteenth century like? Do you have electricity yet on your planet in your neck of the woods?

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Congress has the power to "declare" war, not "wage" war. The President as Commander in Chief has the right to command the troops, and other presidents, including George Washington, has sometimes done so without Congressional declaration of war. Clinton did it several times. Anyway, if you are talking about Iraq, Congress authorized Bush to use force under certain conditions, so it's a moot point. The Constitution doesn't say HOW Congress can declare war, it just assigns that power to Congress.

And to boot, Congress is controlled by Repubs, and Dems can't do a damn thing, anyway, so why would I hold them accountable? It would be like holding me accountable for the murder of Nichole Simpson, because I didn't stop it.

right?

If the GOP wanted to not "break the Constitution", as you say, they could have not done it.

The only ones to vote AGAINST the resolution were Democrats. I'll agree more should have been against it, but this
lame tactic cons use were they blame "congress" without admiting the GOP runs congreass has to stop.

waaaaaa! Clinton and the Dems did it too once 20 years ago!!!! bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Stand up and be men would ya?

If I didn't know better, I'd suspect you were being disingenuous. Go look at the relevant passages of the Constitution and the US Code - the Congress can issue a declaration of war, or it can authorize the president to use force. There was no abdication of legal responsibility, although I'd posit that there was abdication of will, in authorization of use of force, in the failure to demand that the intel be vetted "extra-special", and in the laxative-like passage of the PATSY act. Of course, we're not even talking about what the Repubicans did in those instances, because we know it's a given that they're incapable of understanding the phrase "legal responsibility", all verbal flatulence about RESOLVE, FIRM, CONFIDENCE, LEADER, TRUST, NATURAL LAW, FATHER, CONNECTED, UNDER CONTROL aside. (It's better to capitalize the conditioned affective codewords so that they're raised high enough in everyone's consciousness so that they don't have the opportunity to have their subliminal effect.)

Some people don't but many of us are as harsh with the Dems who voted for this war as we are with the repubs :shrug:

n/t