Short-Circuiting the Surge, E. J. Dionne

[TexasLawyer]

January 05, 2007
Short-Circuiting the Surge
By E. J. Dionne

WASHINGTON --

<snip>

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., the Foreign Relations Committee chairman, has proposed to colleagues that the strongest response to the surge would be a congressional resolution explicitly opposing the step.

Where cutting off funds is a "hollow threat," Biden said in an interview this week, a congressional resolution could have a powerful effect if it drew support from the significant number of Republican senators who are increasingly alienated from Bush's policies. An anti-surge resolution might not bind the president, says Biden, but it would exert considerable pressure on him to reconsider his approach.

More intriguingly, Biden is studying whether Congress might reconsider the original Iraq War resolution, which is now as out of date as the news stories of 2002, the year it passed. The resolution includes references to a "significant chemical and biological weapons capability'' that Iraq didn't have and repeated condemnations of "the current Iraqi regime,'' i.e., the Saddam Hussein regime that fell long ago. In effect, the resolution authorizes a war on an enemy who no longer exists and for purposes that are no longer relevant.

Biden is candid in acknowledging that it is difficult to find precedent for reconsidering a war resolution. Yet Biden's idea of revisiting the authority granted Bush could be a forceful way for Congress to reassert itself and encourage a full-scale debate on the future of American policy in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

<snip>

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/01/a_troop_surge_would_mean_a_con.html

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Another Adult in Congress

Feingold, Biden... we might make it up to a dozen soon.

[rusty charly]

2. but isn't this the "unprecedented" presidency?

bush never looked for precedents, he shouldn't be treated any other way.

[StrictlyRockers]

3. The adults are back in charge. It's time for a correction. K&R

[WinstonSmith4740]

7. More importantly...

The SMART people are back in charge!! And not a minute too soon.

[laststeamtrain]

4. Many paths, one goal: stop the war. n/t

[bleever]

5. He's right...the IWR has the value of a five year old baseball card...

and the corners are frayed, and it's long out of the plastic packaging, and the rookies of the year are regrets long forgotten.

Go, Joe. Forget the presidency; your statesman's power can do more good from a statesman's seat.

[cui bono]

8. Except the baseball card was real, had real value at one time, had a real player on it,

wearing a real uniform, who belonged to a real team, that played in a real league... you get my point.

[bleever]

10. Once that card was an honest investment,

whereas the Iraq War never was.

Joe Shlabotnick might have turned out to be Rookie of the Year. He was recruited honestly.

This war, on the other hand, was fixed from the get-go.

I hope I've gotten your point without leaving anything out.

[cui bono]

11. Exactly! ;)

[uberllama42]

12. The baseball card analogy is not nearly harsh enough

to express the criminality of the War in Iraq. Not to over-analyze your comment, but I think the problem is that a baseball card is morally neutral, while the IRW was a farce, a war crime, and a constitutional violation.

[Kagemusha]

6. Threatening to cut off funds, might be a hollow threat.

Actually doing it would not. There is a difference.

[cui bono]

9. Very interesting tactic... good on Biden! nt

[tonka023]

13. NO SURGE FOR YOU! NEXT!! nt