"Tom Quackenbush" wrote in message
...

After reading:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/anncon/ht...tml#amdt4_hd37

I'm thinking that the issue isn't quite as cut and dried as some on
either side of the issue are trying to make it. I'm no lawyer and I
imagine that the comments on the web site only scratch the surface of
the issue, but I'm left with, "The question of the scope of the
President's constitutional powers, if any, remains judicially
unsettled."

I haven't read your link yet, Tom (I hope I will have time to do so) but
it's a common subject among Constitutional scholars that the powers of the
president, in wartime or under circumstances that have some of the
characteristics of war (like conditions right now), are ambiguous and
subject to wide interpretations. It's the result of vagueness inherent in
the idea of "actions necessary to accomplish..." We're seeing the debate
become public right now.

One legal scholar named Yoo, formerly of the Bush administration lawyer and
now a law professor, shaped a lot of the theory under which Bush is
operating. I started to search for his articles last night but I'm out of
time for it. He is known as an advocate of wide-ranging presidential power,
and he's no lightweight.

OTOH, legal scholars tend to get out of their research and logic what they
want to get out of them. Some of them, like Bork, seem to delight in doing
high-wire acts with speculative legal philosophy. Yoo's collegues, while
they respect him greatly, seem to imply that he also gets a charge out of
the high wire.

And let's be frank: Bush is unlikely to have a genuine opinion of his own on
the matter. He's no Constitutional scholar, and he wasn't a "C" student for
nothing. He's listening to his advisors and acting on what he wants to hear
from them. Yoo was one of his advisors.

--
Ed Huntress