A very good read.

[Occhidiangela]

The Constitution grants Congress the power to create armies, to declare war, to make rules for captured enemies, and ''to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces." But, citing his role as commander in chief, Bush says he can ignore any act of Congress that seeks to regulate the military.

In that he is wrong. See Article I. Clinton was wrong also on that score, see the openly homosexual military issue of early 2003. Congress jealously rose up and slapped him down, with the JCS playing the front man role for the cameras, since the Legislative Branch sets the regulations of the military as law.

On at least four occasions while Bush has been president, Congress has passed laws forbidding US troops from engaging in combat in Colombia, where the US military is advising the government in its struggle against narcotics-funded Marxist rebels.

That isn't regulation of the military, that is operations, which lie in the province of the Commander in Chief. But here we enter a swamp.

The dispute between the regulations of the military, as in how the military is administered and funded, and what laws and rules apply, and what the military can and can't do operationally has been severely muddied ever since Harry Truman began a police action in Korea; the military fought a war for 10 years without a declaration in Viet Nam; the military was enlisted in 'The War on Drugs;"(with Congressional sanction) and CONGRESS authorized force, but did not declare war on, Iraq.

Mr Savage chooses to ignore a great deal in his factually and semantically incorrect statements. He mixes terms carelessly, and from his article seems to not understand what he is talking about in re the military issues. I hardly blame him for his confusion. The "War Powers Act" further muddied the operational military waters vis a vis Congress and the Executive Branch. The Columbia mess is a red herring.

The meat of the issue, and what Mr Savage discusses with excellent supporting points, is the matter of the President not using the veto, but instead using the death of a thousand cuts, and a passive aggressive "you can't make me" attitude with Congress . . . and seeing if he can get away with it.

After signing each bill, Bush declared in his signing statement that he did not have to obey any of the Colombia restrictions because he is commander in chief.

I don't think Savage is directly quoting, he is paraphrasing, and the sense of this paraphrasing is dead wrong. "Because he is commander in chief" is not a vlaid reason for much of anything. See my remarks above about the loopholes in the Constitution that have been exploited by Congress and Executive branch. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, anyone? :o "Because I am commander in chief" you tend to hear from pundits like the Fox shills.

Congress and the President have been playing tug of war over who is the greater among equals since . . . 1789. It is the nature of the beast. Look at Lincoln's actions in that light, and it shapes how you see his presidency.

The branch's several roles are laid out, broadly, in the Constitution, but the devil is in the details. This is why now and again such interpretations get put before the Supreme Court. This helps understand why Pres Bush has been so eager to put certain people on the Supreme Court's bench.

I like that Mr Savage pointed to matters of law, Congress, and tactics that point to the dangers inherent when the President and both houses of Congress are in the same party. In Johnson's case, it resulted in a gross expansion of the welfare state. In Pres Bush's case, it's a different sort of mess.

I personally don't think GW Bush came up with this idea. I think it is the brainchild of Dick Cheney, and perhaps a few others.

Occhi

By Charlie Savage / Boston Globe
Reagan's successors continued this practice. George H.W. Bush challenged 232 statutes over four years in office, and Bill Clinton objected to 140 laws over his eight years, according to Kelley, the Miami University of Ohio professor.

Many of the challenges involved longstanding legal ambiguities and points of conflict between the president and Congress.

--Throughout the past two decades, for example, each president -- including the current one -- has objected to provisions requiring him to get permission from a congressional committee before taking action. The Supreme Court made clear in 1983 that only the full Congress can direct the executive branch to do things, but lawmakers have continued writing laws giving congressional committees such a role.

--Bush has challenged more than 750 new laws, by far a record for any president, while becoming the first president since Thomas Jefferson to stay so long in office without issuing a veto.

-- ''We believe the president understands Congress's intent in passing, by very large majorities, legislation governing the treatment of detainees," McCain and Warner said in a joint statement. ''The Congress declined when asked by administration officials to include a presidential waiver of the restrictions included in our legislation."

-- Added Graham: ''I do not believe that any political figure in the country has the ability to set aside any . . . law of armed conflict that we have adopted or treaties that we have ratified."

-- Without court involvement, only Congress can check a president who goes too far. But Bush's fellow Republicans control both chambers, and they have shown limited interest in launching the kind of oversight that could damage their party.
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