Post #113

Subject: To protect and defend….

When the next President of the United States is sworn in, January of ‘09, she – :) – will swear to protect and defend the Constitution. Contrary to what ya hear, the most important job of the President is NOT to protect and defend the American people but rather to protect and defend the Constitution. As Ron Paul would tell ya, this country would be a lot better served if our political leaders would pay attention to the Constitution.

… from “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” September 28, 2007:

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Mario Cuomo was a three-term governor of New York. Governor Cuomo, thank you for joining us. What concerns you about the Democratic field right now and what they‘re doing in terms of Iran?

MARIO CUOMO (D), FORMER NEW YORK GOVERNOR: Well, it‘s what they‘re not doing that concerns me most. What they‘re not doing is learning from the terrible mistake we made in allowing the president to seize the war power and take us to war all alone. It was his war. And we sent a few resolutions which were ambiguous and which didn‘t mean a whole lot, tagging along with him.

The Founding Fathers addressed the question of who and how you declare war and said it was the most important question that would face the country. And they were given two choices: give it to the president or give it to the Congress. Washington, who led the convention, said under no circumstances should a president have the power to declare war by himself, basically. And so it should go to the Congress. There was only one vote for the president.

And in the Constitution today is something we ignored in Iraq. It says, Article 1, Section 8, the power to declare war belongs to the Congress. The difference is—and this is what was said at the convention and it‘s common sense—you give it to one man, he may be mad. He may be an egotist. He may be misguided. Or he might be stupid. And instead, you should give it to the Congress. They represent everybody. The whole country will have an opportunity town participate in the deliberations. That‘s what should have happened.

And what should happen now is that the Democrats, who have the responsibility because they lead the Congress—we have the majority vote they should say this: There may come a time to go to war, but before you go to war, you should come back, read that Constitution, come to the Congress and let us all deliberate so all the people with congressmen can speak to their congressmen and can discuss this issue. Let‘s not do what we did before and wind up apologizing for our resolutions and saying we‘re sorry.

Now, remember, the Founding Fathers gave the power to declare war to the Congress. That power cannot be delegated to the president. You can‘t adopt a resolution and say, Well, the Founding Fathers wanted us to do it, but it‘s too heavy a lift for us, so we empower you, Mr. President, if you feel like doing it, to do it.

And my goodness, the president you‘re talking about is the president who started a war with a mistaken context. Assuming he was telling the truth, and I will, he was wrong about the reason for it. He was wrong about complicity. He was wrong about how many troops we needed. He was wrong about how we would be greeted when we got there. He was wrong about the civil war, wrong about how much it would cost, wrong about how long it would last, and now you‘re saying maybe he can start another war. It‘s a mistake.

This is an opportunity for the Democrats to show real leadership, and the presidential candidates should lead the way. And if they don‘t, then the question is going to be, Well, when it comes to improvident war making, why are you any better than Bush?

MATTHEWS: OK, let me ask you about—Governor, about this resolution this week. It declares the Iraqi—or rather, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be a terrorist organization. What do you think—what use could the president make of that resolution by the Senate and now by the House, as well?

CUOMO: Well, if you judge by history, he would say something like this, and this kind of lawyer‘s trick—but he has some lawyers around him. He would say, Well, they‘re terrorists—they‘re a terrorist group and they‘re associated with other terrorists, al Qaeda. And therefore, they are complicit with al Qaeda, and the authority you gave me to fight al Qaeda and to fight in Iraq, that covers these people. So you‘ve already given me permission for this. I don‘t need to go to the Congress. I‘m going to do it on my own.

That would be a terribly stupid and unconstitutional thing to do, and that should be dealt with now. Look, the practical part of it is, even if you don‘t agree with the constitutional argument—and I don‘t know how you can disagree, it‘s clear in the Constitution, all you have to do is read it. But even if you disagreed that he had to go back to it as a matter of constitutional law, as a matter of practicality, he should.

MATTHEWS: Right.

CUOMO: At the very least, that language gives you an option. And the Democrats should say, Come back to the Congress, let‘s do it more thoroughly. Maybe the Congress will say there should be a war. I doubt it, but maybe they will. But it should be Congress and not the president.

MATTHEWS: You know, Governor, you are so far ahead—you are so far ahead of some of the other Democrats because I hear people on this program I say to them, Do you believe the president of the United States, this president or any other, has to come to Congress before he launches a military action against Iran? And they won‘t say he has to. They won‘t even insist on their constitutional role anymore.

CUOMO: You know why, Chris? Here‘s what‘s happened. And it‘s unfortunate, but this is what‘s happened. Ever since the Second World War, I‘m not going to say gutless, but timid Congress people and eager presidents went to war and committed acts of war, ignoring the Constitution. And they did it in Vietnam. And they did it in Korea. And the Congress never spoke out against it. As a matter of fact, the Congress to use the word again—was complicit with the president. In effect, they tried to hand their power over to the president.

And the Supreme Court never intervened because they have a very cute doctrine called “political question.” If it‘s an argument between you politicians, we‘re going to get out of the way. Incidentally, they didn‘t do that in Bush against Gore, the most political of all questions.

MATTHEWS: Sure.

CUOMO: They grabbed that opportunity. So there‘s something hypocritical about that power. But that‘s what happened. And so you got in the habit of ignoring the Constitution. And let me say this about that. You cannot amend the Constitution with persistent evasion. You can‘t say, Well, we didn‘t do it right for a long time. Therefore, it doesn‘t count anymore. The Constitution is unchanged. Article one, section 8, if you want to declare war—and that‘s what dropping the bomb on the head of anybody is, it‘s war—you have to come to the Congress. And Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, the leaders of the Democrats—wonderful opportunity to step forward and say, That‘s right, and if there‘s going to be a war here, you‘re going to have to come back to us to talk about it.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about the last war, the war, unfortunately, that continues and may continue for another decade, the way people are talking right now. And I‘m including the Democrats. I‘m not just pointing to Hillary Clinton here because I have other people I know in Congress who voted to authorize the war back in 2002. But when you challenge them at a party or somewhere, you say, Why did you guys vote for this war, they all say the same thing—Oh, we didn‘t vote to authorize the war. We just gave the president the authority to make a decision, and we thought he was going to continue with inspections. What‘s your response?

CUOMO: Here‘s my response. You‘re right, you didn‘t authorize him. You‘re right, you did try to delegate him, to take your power that the Founding Fathers said only you should have, and to deliver it to the president if he wished to use it. You can‘t do that. The power was given to you. It‘s not delegable. You can‘t turn around and give it to the secretary of state or give it even to the president.

They had a chance to make the president the person who declares war, and they said no, the Founding Fathers, and they said it very, very decisively. And my goodness, have you ever had a better set of facts to instruct you in how right they were? Look at what happened when you did leave it to this president and left it just to him and his advisers to decide on war. The whole United States of America now, you let them vote on whether or not they want a president all by himself, especially this president, to declare war again. God forbid!