Not everyone is surprised by the presidential about-face. John Yoo, a former Bush administration lawyer and one of the primary architects of the “strong executive” theory of presidential power, told BuzzFeed News, “Obama has adopted the same view of war powers as the Bush administration.”
In a preview of his speech on Sunday, Obama told Chuck Todd of NBC’s Meet the Press that he was “confident that I have the authorization that I need to protect the American people.” Obama repeated that same line in meetings with foreign policy pundits on Monday and again in meetings with congressional leaders on Tuesday.
That authority is Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, which names the president commander-in-chief of the military. But not everyone is convinced that the clause, which opens Section 2, gives the president the authority Obama currently claims. Among those doubters is Obama himself, or at least the pre-presidential version.
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