Apparently Obama isn't imperial enough for the GOP

Although the Obama AUMF on its face allows the president to expand the war beyond the current theaters of battle in Iraq and Syria, it also contains a three-year time limit and a loosely worded bar to “enduring offensive ground combat operations.” Boehner, Rubio, and many of their co-partisans find those restrictions unendurable. As they see it, any new authorization from Congress should be, like true love, endless and unconditional.

Obama’s draft authorization would “tie his hands even further,” Boehner lamented. The “limitations built into it are really quite unprecedented,” Rubio agonized on the Senate floor Wednesday. “We did some research earlier today,” Rubio continued, and “never before” has Congress authorized military action “with limitations on the time or the geography or anything of this nature.”

If Rubio’s serious about running for president, he should demand better staff work. Congress’s power to impose limitations on military targets, tactics, and timing has been recognized since the earliest days of the republic. A recent review of authorizations for the use of force throughout American history found that 60 percent imposed geographic limitations; 23 percent contained an expiration date, and “37 percent limited the kinds of military operations or forces authorized to be employed.”