Kucinich’s Crusade

The Eli Rosenberg’s article for the National Journal titled Dennis Kucinich, Being Consistent, Sides with Tea Party on Libya could not have been more clear while being a tad confusing.  His description of an “eccentric Congressman Dennis Kucinich” reporting that “Kucinich went one step further, claiming, Talking Points Memo reports, that Obama's decision "would appear on its face to be an impeachable offense" because the president failed to secure congressional authorization.”  Rosenberg further reported on information reported to Dave Weigel from Republican Representative Justin Amash saying "When there is no imminent threat to our country, he cannot launch strikes without authorization from the American people, through our elected Representatives in Congress."   Tea Party figure Senator Rand Paul is quoted as saying "We’re involved in two wars right now, and I don’t think we really need to be involved in a third war." Mr. Rosenberg also asked us to “compare those to the comments from an unnamed Democratic lawmaker in Politico: "They consulted the Arab League. They consulted the United Nations. They did not consult the United States Congress.”

While this was nothing more than a typical “anything he can do, I can do better” thing, I was just slightly annoyed with those who are quick to respond without knowing or admitting the whole truth when they speak.  Only after watching Mr. Kucinich’s interview on The Ed Show did it become a task to verify what he was advocating as the truth.  He said that he had no doubt that the actions taken by President Obama were against the Constitution and when asked about the other interventions in the past, he averted the question with the same argument they all did.  He mentioned being in several wars already and not wanting another.  I was compelled to take a few minutes and check the U.S. Constitution to see if Mr. Kucinich was correct and here is what I found.

The Constitution clearly grants the Congress the power to declare war, in Article 1, Section 8. This power is not shared with anyone, including the President; however, the President is just as clearly made the Commander in Chief of all of the armed forces, in Article 2, Section 2. In this role, the President has the ability to defend the nation or to take military action without involving the Congress directly, and the President's role as Commander-in-Chief is often part of the reason for that.  A declaration of war by the Congress places the Unites States at war without any doubt. Absent a declaration of war, the President can react to acts in an expedient fashion as he sees fit. This information was quite easy to find and took about maybe 5 minutes to locate.  It was taken from the website www.usconstitution.net and if Mr. Kucinich or someone from his staff had spent a few minutes looking it up they might not have stepped in it.  Because of this, I now have to question whether this was really about the constitution or does he have deeper issues with this president?