“Congress made a big stink about it and didn’t do anything,” University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner told me. He believes the War Powers Act puts unconstitutional constraints on executive power and that ultimately, Congress may not have wanted the responsibility of asserting its prerogatives under the War Powers Act.
“You want us to withdraw in the middle of a battle, abandoning our allies? Congress doesn’t want to do that,” Posner said. “It’s like you want someone to hold you back when you want to fight someone else. You want to look like you’re tough and you’re willing to fight, but you don’t really want to have to do it.”
But Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman, who believes Obama has set a terrible precedent in Libya, said that until Congress dropped everything to debate the debt ceiling, lawmakers were actually moving to address the issue.
“I don’t think it was play acting at all,” Ackerman said. He said that if the Libya engagement continues into the fall when Congress is back in session, the controversy is sure to revive itself.
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