- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
The meme that has developed in the echo chambers of the Weekly Standard and National Review, to the effect that Congress is exceeding its authority by legislating timetables in the supplemental, is simply mind-boggling. There is no constitutional justification for it whatsoever.
More bizarrely, these pundits even exceed the position staked out by President Bush, who actually acknowledges congressional authority in this area! He said at his April 3 press confrence on this subject:
Q When Congress has linked war funding with a timetable you have argued micromanagement. When they've linked it to unrelated spending, you've argued pork barrel. But now there's talk from Harry Reid and others that if you veto this bill, they may come back and just simply cut off funding. Wouldn't that be a legitimate exercise of a congressional authority, which is the power of the purse?
THE PRESIDENT: The Congress is exercising its legitimate authority as it sees fit right now. I just disagree with their decisions. I think setting an artificial timetable for withdrawal is a significant mistake. It is a -- it sends mixed signals and bad signals to the region, and to the Iraqi citizens.
Madness.
