How Congress Might Send a "Message" to the President About Iraq

Marty Lederman

According to reports of a Friday White House meeting, Democratic congressional leaders quite understandably are frustrated with the President "over what they perceived as his reluctance to embrace major recommendations from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group." In this respect, the Democrats certainly are reflecting the consensus view of the U.S. public, 71 percent of which is said to be dissatisfied with Bush's handing of Iraq, and 60 percent of which favors a six-month deadline for withdrawal. (AP-Ipsos poll numbers.) (The President, on the other hand, is reported to be comforted by strong opposition to the ISG from his right-wing base, which appears to be under some otherworldly spell, or hubris, that prevents them from seeing that everything they've proposed over the past five years has led to catastrophe.)

"Democrats stressed to Bush in separate meetings the dire need for the administration to revamp its Iraq policy, . . . [b]ut some Democrats came away unconvinced that major changes were coming. 'I just didn't feel there today, the president in his ords or his demeanor, that he is going to do anything right away to change things drastically,' Senate Majority Leader-elect Harry Reid, D-Nev., said following the Oval Office meeting. 'He is tepid in what he talks about doing. Someone has to get the message to this man that there have to be significant changes.'"

Someone? How about Congress "getting him the message," Senator Reid, by actually requiring him to act? I fully realize that deciding which course of action we should take in Iraq, and when, are extremely difficult questions. It may be that coming to a consensus on particular statutory langauge would be very difficult under the circumstances. And there may not be a consensus, even among congressional Democrats, about many particulars of the ISG Report. But to the extent the Democrats can agree amongst themselves on at least some of the ISG recommendations, and/or on other proposals, they ought to put those directives in a bill, and have both Houses of Congress pass it.

It speaks volumes about our modern political system that, as far as I am aware, in the hundreds or thousands of articles and blogposts about the current dilemma in Iraq -- the vast majority of which complain about the President's inertia and stubbornness -- no one has so much has suggested the most obvious solution, the one actually contemplated under the Constitution: Congress can pass a law telling the President what to do (or what he may not do). Congress, after all, authorized the war in Iraq. The legislature can likewise now cabin or modify or condition that authorization. [UPDATE: I had failed to notice this: "Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi said this week that Democrats would impose new standards and conditions in Iraq spending bills." So perhaps the idea is not so unthinkable after all.]

Would the President complain that such a law is unconstitutional? Of course he would -- although in most if not all respects, he'd be mistaken.

Would he veto it? Almost certainly.

Would Congress be able to override such a veto? Presumably not -- but if things get even more dire, public support dwindles even further, and other Republicans follow the lead of Senator Gordon Smith, who knows?

But even if the President were to veto the bill and there were insufficient votes to override, at least the issue would be joined, and the public could more fully understand where the Democratic and Republican parties respectively stand on the most important issue of our time.

And that wouldn't be a bad thing -- certain not for the public, and probably not for the Democratic Party, either.
Posted 3:48 PM by Marty Lederman [link]