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Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Well, Congress abdicated its role, then. See U.S. Const., Art. I, sec. 8. And Kerry supported its doing so.
Given the important constitutional check that Congress is supposed to play in declarations of war, it strikes me as a bit rich to say "all I was doing was letting the president make a decision". Come on--Congress was making a decision in letting the president begin hostilities. It was not a vote give away its power. The vote had a substantive component to it. And Kerry, at the time, believed war was appropriate.
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If I cared to, I could show you statements from Bush before the vote, explaining how he needed the leverage to go back to the UN, etc. It's no secret that Bush engineered an early vote for political reasons, to get his way from Congress, etc. Holding Kerry responsible for getting played by these tactics is just fucked-up. I agree with you that a originalist reading of the Constitution suggests that Congress should not be issuing the President a credit card, but rather disbursing funds. But the way the world functions has pushed Congresses and Presidents to do things differently for several decades now. And I don't see originalists condemning the President for seizing this power.
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If he wants to back away from the vote, I really don't see how it helps him--I was voting for indecision and to let someone capable of actual acting decisively make a decision?
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His mistake is in discussing the vote at all. As I said, he needs to stay on message better, and no part of his message for the next two months should involve explanations of specific legislative votes. This is one reason why legislators shouldn't run for President.
