war powers act

Jordan Hayes jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com
Fri Apr 16 11:04:23 PDT 1999


Doug's initial question had to do with the politics of this: namely, now that we see a Democrat doing it is it any different for those who opposed the last one from a Republican. I agree that there's likely some amount of double standard, and Doug is correct in pointing it out. But: I do not think that Clinton is in violation of the War Powers Act, and I'm confident that if he was he'd hear about it from Congress. Afterall, they put this thing together in the aftermath of Viet Nam and under a hailstorm of criticism for feeling left out of the loop. Republican and Democrat agree: the thing a Congresscritter hates the most is being left out of the loop, *ESPECIALLY* by the President.

I'd pose a slightly different question: given Congress' consent of this action, why aren't they taking their own power seriously and declaring war?

/jordan



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list