Thanks, But You've Done Enough Already.

Report Urges Overhaul of the War Powers Law

By JOHN M. BRODER

WASHINGTON — Two former secretaries of state, concluding that a 1973 measure limiting the president’s ability to wage war unilaterally had never worked as intended, proposed on Tuesday a new system of closer consultation between the White House and Congress before American forces go into battle.

Their proposal would require the president to consult senior lawmakers before initiating combat expected to last longer than a week, except for covert operations or rare circumstances requiring emergency action, in which case consultation would have to be undertaken within three days.

Congress, for its part, would have 30 days to approve the military action or, if it declined to do so, could then order it ended by disapproving it.

YEAH, thanks, but 1) we already have an absolutely Constitutional system governing this, called, well, the Constitution; the fact that we don't use it has spent almost a century lying on the doorstep of that same legislative body we now propose to let solve the problem. Again. 2) We've now spent almost five-and-a-half years--well over six if you'd like to begin admitting to yourselves that he fucked up Afghanistan, too--getting the most direct object lesson possible, short of the actual rape and pillage of our own shores, about the President as Commander-in-Chief. And we've spent almost two years with a Congress which was elected, about as specifically as one could be, to fucking do something about it. And again, as luck would have it--Reality sure has a way of smacking everything touched by James Addison Baker III and/or Warren Minor Christopher smack dab in the kisser, don't it?--that same body just yesterday, with great, trans-partisan care of the sort we're promised a whole new era's worth of just ahead, slammed the fucking door on punishing, investigating, or even bothering to glance at, a Presidential crime wave so plain. so invidious, and so thorough that I've spent the past few waking hours asking myself just what the fuck Bill Clinton could have done with Monica Lewinsky that would have begun to approach a single twenty-four hour period with this crew. So far I've come up with "Given her to Prime Minister Hashimoto with a note apologizing for WWII", but I'm not sure even that qualifies.

Now Warren, Jim, I understand you feel seriously about this issue, or you'd have never bothered to hog valuable camera time in a country that can't possibly still realize, let alone care, that you're still drawing oxygen. And you know me; I'm all about the solutions. So I scribbled down a, well, modest proposal here. Go ahead and use it without attribution, if you like:

The James B. S. Riley Simplified War Powers And World Peace Initiative Act

The duties of the Commander-in-Chief shall be construed as requiring that he or she, or, in the future, he/she, physically lead the troops of the United States into any military action, foreign or domestic, he, she, or he/she orders under Article II of the Constitution of the United States, while riding a big white steed. And carrying a big motherfucking flag. Amen.

This should have the attendant benefit of reducing our military budgets rather drastically.

Now, you two get out of the sandbox and let the younger cats shit all over it for a change.