Congress "orders" the President


Except they can't legally do so
Now this is a deliberate set up.

A sharply divided House brushed aside a veto threat Wednesday and passed legislation that would order President Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq by Oct. 1.

One small, tiny little problem.

Congress can't do it.

It's all laid out in Article 2, Section 2 of the United States Constitution. The President is the Commander in Chief, he can accept no orders for the United States military.

Now Congress can withhold funding, they can withdraw existing funding, or they can impeach the President. One thing that they can not do is order the President to withdraw troops. Just as they can't order the President to deploy troops. What's more, the military oath says absolutely nothing about accepting the orders of Congress. Officers can only accept orders from the chain of command or from the President, to do otherwise is a court-martial offense.

It gets better. You see, Article 2, Section 1 sets out the Presidential oath.

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

If the President honors his oath, he is duty bound to fight Congress on this issue.

What is absolutely amazing about this is that Congressional Democrats don't see the long term consequences. If they manage to force this curb on Presidential power, the sparks are going to fly the very next time there is a Democrat President and a Republican Congress.

Despite the fact that I supported invading Iraq (although not for the "official reasons"), I am one of those who is less than thrilled with how the occupation has been going. There are some early signs that may be changing, but it is too early to tell.

But this isn't about Iraq, it's about getting Bush. And if they go outside the system to nail Bush, they are going to incinerate their own power base as well. That is the real struggle here. If the Democrats shatter the system to "stop Bush," there will not be a Constitution left. It works ONLY because of the consent of the governed, which means that politicos have to play by the rules. Ignore that to make to make a power grab, and millions of Americans will decide that they do not consent.

There is no better way for the statists to make the libertarian argument for us. And they may have just doomed the two party system.

Popcorn? It promises to be quite a show.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Thu - April 26, 2007 at 04:54 AM  Tag


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