The House on Friday rebuked President Obama for failing “to provide Congress with a compelling rationale” for the military campaign in Libya, but stopped short of demanding he withdraw U.S. forces from the fight.Read the rest here.
By a vote of 257 to 156, the House approved a resolution that criticized Obama for not seeking congressional authorization for the 76-day-old campaign against Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi.
The resolution would give Obama 14 more days to convince Congress the attacks against Gaddafi are justified by U.S. interests.
The House rejected, by a vote of 148 to 265, a more drastic measure from one of the fixtures of anti-war sentiment in the House, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio). That resolution would have demanded Obama pull out of the Libyan operation within 15 days.
With those votes, the House stepped back from a confrontation over how America goes to war.
But perhaps only temporarily.
I would have preferred something with a bit more teeth. But this is frankly more than I expected, so I will applaud a half step in the right direction over the usual none at all.
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"First, on March 1 the United States Senate passed a resolution calling for a no-fly zone. That was a bipartisan resolution. There were a number of people in the House, including leadership in both the Republican and Democratic Parties, who were demanding that action be taken." (Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, NBC, "Meet the Press", march 27; http://fwd4.me/034F)
So, the Senate cannot ask what's up for sure.
The back and forth claims of "you can't do that" by the party that happens to not hold the Presidency is getting a little old. No one wants to clarify or narrow the war powers of the Executive Branch, thus they aren't clear or narrow.
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