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According to Article II, section 8 of the United States Constitution:
"The Congress shall have the power to... declare War, grant Letters of
Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and
Water; To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of
Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and
maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land
and naval Forces;To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws
ofthe Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for
organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Partof
them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the
States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority
oftraining the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress,"
So can someone please explain what Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid are doing making Executive Branch decisions in this letter? If I remember my Civics 101 correctly, the President makes choices on troop levels and disbursements. Congress is made up of 535 individuals, two parties and personal politics (i.e. Pelosi-Harmen fight), how can they tell the Joint Chiefs on how to conduct their affairs? If I remember my 1990's correctly , Newt was told by the network news and President Clinton's office: the Speaker is not the President.
The letter was generated because the Democrats had to satisfy their base; Otherwise known by P.J. O'Roarke as the Permanently Indigent. Led by Cindy Sheehan, she disrupted Rahm Emanuel's press conference. Then, the combined forces of the Democrats Inner Party had to act. Thus, the letter.
Once upon a time, when we were fighting a State entity (USSR and it's allies), Senator Vandenberg declared, "Politics stops at the waters edge," In Foreign Policy magazine in 1996, here is an article dealing with post-WWII Foreign Policy bipartisanship. Until 2000, both parties fought against enemies of the United States and it's allies. Now that we are fighting an enemy who is an Non-Governmental Organization [NGO], and where is the Democrat's Vandenburg?
Senators in the of Arthur Vandenberg, Margaret Chase Smith and even J. William Fulbright have in large part become extinct
ReplyDeleteRobert Byrd contains the last vestiges of the idea articulated by Senator Vandenberg. Although, he is quite liberal. He has remained largely silent on the war in Iraq.
I tend to think the change is due to generational differences
Robert Byrd and Daniel Inouye come from an earlier tradition that espouses an idea that is different from the ideas espoused by those Senators who were first elected in the 1970's.
Senator Kennedy is an exception because he is considerably younger than Senator Byrd or Senator Inouye