Honzo December 18th, 2005

Pushing the Limits Of Wartime Powers

I don’t like this:

On occasion the Bush administration has explicitly
rejected the authority of courts and Congress to impose boundaries on
the power of the commander in chief, describing the president’s
war-making powers in legal briefs as “plenary” — a term defined as
“full,” “complete,” and “absolute.”

I know they filled in four members of congress from both parties.
Graham of Florida said that the administration just told him that they
were having a change in technology, not a change in policy.

Is Graham covering his butt on this one? The article brings up two points that suggest he is:

Why would we have a meeting in the vice president’s
office to talk about a change and then tell the members of Congress
there is no change?”

and

The high-ranking intelligence official, who spoke with
White House permission but said he was not authorized to be identified
by name, said Graham is “misremembering the briefings,” which in fact
were “very, very comprehensive.” The official declined to describe any
of the substance of the meetings, but said they were intended “to make
sure the Hill knows this program in its entirety, in order to never,
ever be faced with the circumstance that someone says, ‘I was briefed
on this but I had no idea that — ‘ and you can fill in the rest.”

This whole issue concerns me greatly. I can’t articulate my position
on it. Partly because I don’t have all the facts and partly because I
might have done the same thing.

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