It used to be that Vice President Joe Biden offered measured, well considered and even scholarly analyses:
After studying the constitutional language governing the use of military force and the debates that the Framers had on the issue, Joe Biden determined that the Founding Fathers had vested the power to authorize even the limited use of military force in the Congress not the president---unless it was necessary for the president to act swiftly to repel an attack on the United States or to rescue U.S. citizens.
Biden derided the opposite position—that the president could use military force without congressional authorization—as a “monarchist” view of presidential power.
That was in 1998, however, when Biden was in the Senate.Of course, the president's authority to use force must be sharply restrained -- except when the president in a Democrat, apparently. In 2011, defending the administration's unconstitutional war against Libya, Biden said,
I believe that the Constitutional authority of the president to use military force without Congressional authorization does extend beyond circumstances of “actual or imminent threat.” Under Article II of the Constitution, the President is the “commander-in-chief” of the military. I would argue that this means that the president has the authority to use force in short, quick operations that are undertaken in the interests of national or international security. In the past, presidents have many times used force for such operations that involve a minimal amount of force and are of relatively limited duration. In most of those occasions, Congress has acquiesced in the presidents’ actions. Initial, US military involvement in Libya would seem to fall into this category.Expect similar dissembling to justify an illegal war against Syria.
More here.
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