Cowardice and Conscience | The American Conservative: If Congress votes “yes,” and does so for the reasons Douthat articulates (fear of crippling the Presidency), then “authorization” by Congress will have been reduced to a literal formality. How is that better than having a future President try to avoid facing Congress (and possibly face rebuke for doing so)? How, in particular, does it make it more likely that future Congresses will have the courage to stand up to Presidents who ignore or try to railroad them?
Moreover, a future President would have to consider not only the risk of going to Congress and losing, but would understand that this risk reflected real concern on the part of Congress of the political risk of voting yes to war. Such a President would necessarily be more cautious about committing America militarily in ambiguous situations, if only for fear of taking all that political risk on him- or herself.