by dakine01
They Were Against the Wars Before They Were…Wait, Now I’m Confused
3:40 pm in Uncategorized by dakine01
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I spend a lot of time confused about things that are happening in the world today. I mostly write about the economy at my sucky little blog and stay away from foreign policy issues but occasionally there are days like today that just leave me scratching my head and looking around for a scorecard.
The last couple of weeks, the Speaker of the House, John Boehner and President Obama have been going back and forth a bit on whether the President is operating within his authority in LIbya. Today, we had Senators Lindsey Graham (via Politico) and John McCain (via ABC News) seemingly telling their colleagues to sit down and STFU. Graham especially seems to offer a novel “Constitutional” argument:
“I would take the course that conservatives have been taking for the last 30 years — The War Powers Act is unconstitutional, not worth the paper its written on,” Graham declared. “It’s an infringement on the power of the commander in chief.”
So much for the Congressional power to declare war and control the purse strings.
McCain didn’t go quite as far as Graham:
Former Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) took aim at his party for what he called its growing movement towards isolationism, chastising the current GOP presidential field for not supporting U.S. military intervention in Libya and calling for speedy troop withdrawals from Afghanistan.
…snip…
President Obama has come under fire recently for the U.S. involvement in Libya, which is taking place without congressional approval. Although McCain criticized Obama for “leading from behind” by having NATO take charge of the operation, he encouraged Congress to pass his co-sponsored resolution with Senator John Kerry (D-MA) giving congressional authorization for U.S. military involvement in Libya, which reached the 90-day mark today.
