Fascinating Look At Senators And Congressional War Powers

[Ed. note: You also might want to look at Mark McDonald's post on why American hubris bears a big blame in the Iraq war fiasco at Beggars Can Be Choosers.]

Glenn Greenwald is hot today with an excellent round-up of where our senators have stood on presidential v. Congressional powers on war (go to the link to see a heluva summary of quotes and context):

Russ Feingold today is chairing a Committee hearing in order to demonstrate that Congress has the Constitutional authority to compel the President to withdraw troops from Iraq, a power that is not merely confined to cutting off appropriations. Sen. Feingold is holding the hearing in the face of claims -- mostly from Congressional Republicans and their supporters -- that only the President has the power to make determinations about troop deployments, and Congress' only power is one of appropriations.

Back in September, when Chris Wallace falsely accused Bill Clinton of emboldening the Terrorists by prematurely cutting-and-running from Somalia (a favorite right-wing meme), it was documented here (as Clinton himself pointed out to Wallace) that it was actually Republican Senators who forced Clinton to withdraw troops by imposing troop withdrawal deadlines on him and threatening further restrictions on his ability to keep troops there. But if one goes back and reviews that debate, it is quite striking that Republicans back then certainly did not seem to believe that Congress lacked the ability to restrict the President's power to deploy troops. They argued exactly the opposite - that they had that power -- and they used it to force Clinton out of Somalia (all excerpts are available here, by searching "Somalia):

John McCain's stirring pro-withdrawal Senate speech about why it was urgent that the Senate force Clinton to leave Somalia is particularly interesting in light of all of his completely contrary claims today about Iraq...