Freedom Line Blog

It’s one of the stranger alliances imaginable in the current Congress, but it looks like a possibility. Per a story in Roll Call:

Frustrated by the White House’s handling of the civil war in Libya, House Republicans will meet Thursday to discuss what steps Congress should take to intervene — including the possibility of backing Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s resolution calling for an end to U.S. involvement.

Although GOP support for the Ohio Democrat’s resolution is far from certain, an aide said the fact that it is even being discussed is a sign of how unhappy Republicans are. “Members are really angry with the way the administration has handled this,” a GOP aide said.

The opposition has a good case on the merits. As I’ve chronicled before, the Libyan mission is an orgy of confusion with a tangential (at best) connection to American national security interests.

It will be interesting, however, to see how Republicans in particular deal with the legal issues surrounding the war. President Obama has already exceeded the 60 day window given to him by the 1973 War Powers Resolution to receive Congressional authorization for the war, which could be a solid Republican talking point — except for the fact that huge swaths of the conservative foreign policy and legal intellegentsia consider the War Powers Resolution to be an unconstitutional infringement on the president’s war-making powers. To complicate matters even further, Obama himself was a vigorous opponent of presidents using that war-making authority in exactly the way he has in Libya.

So what happens next? It seems the only thing we can expect for sure is inconsistency all around.

Fully nine weeks ago, President Obama assured members of Congress and the American public that U.S. involvement in Libyan “kinetic military action” would be a matter of “days, not weeks.” Notably, Obama also opined in 2007 that, “The president does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”  Well, according to the 1973 War Powers Resolution, the President must secure Congressional assent for military action or withdraw U.S. forces within 60 days.  Today marks that 60-day milestone.  Well played once again, Mr. President.