For all the bipartisan opposition expressed in the House of Representatives to the Libya war, a second vote to defund the conflict just failed on the House floor. But it didn't fail by much, indicating that Congress is getting bolder about blocking war cash.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat, tried to amend the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill to deny funds for what he called the "illegal, unconstitutional war." No dice. The House beat back the amendment, 229 to 199.
But that's a smaller margin of defeat than a similar effort last month. The result of a schizophrenic effort that also rejected authorizing the war, only 180 legislators voted to block funds for President Obama's "non-war" war. The closer margin this time around -- which crossed party lines -- follows on an effort in March that very nearly passed to accelerate the Afghanistan pullout. (Although a measure to defund Afghanistan was roundly defeated on Thursday.)
Still, blocking Libya money from the defense authorization is probably opponent's best shot at stopping the war. Congress doesn't typically vote against war spending, even when anti-Iraq war Democrats took the House in 2006. That's eroding. But Congress still isn't quite ready to put its money where its mouth is, even while both liberals and conservatives have beat up on the Obama team for entering into another seemingly endless war.
Accordingly, Obama has felt comfortable punking Congress. He argued last month that he doesn't need any congressional authorization for the war because U.S. forces aren't involved in "hostilities." Never mind that U.S. Predator drones have fired their missiles at Libyan ground forces at least 60 times since arriving in Libya in late April. Never mind that the war costs $9.5 million every day. And never mind that his own lawyers said he needed congressional authorization for the war.
Obama's insult to common sense earned him a rebuke from one of his closest Senate allies, Republican Richard Lugar of Indiana. "A fundamental failure of leadership that placed expedience above Constitutional responsibility," Lugar called it.
But so far, Obama's getting away with it. There's a bill in the Senate, penned by John Kerry and John McCain, that would let Obama conduct the Libya war for another year. But Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, pulled it from a vote Tuesday afternoon after Republicans wanted to work on the debt crisis instead. No replacement vote is yet scheduled.
Not that Obama cares. Sure, it would be *nice, *he said in a press conference last week, since its bipartisan origins "should tell the American people that this is important." But no dearth of congressional authority will stop him from waging it -- only a dearth of cash.
There was one bright spot for Libya opponents: they succeeded in amending the defense bill to block any U.S. funding for the Libya rebels. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates is probably pretty cool with that.
But expressing anger over the failure to defund the war itself, Rep. Scott Rigell, a Virginia Republican, denounced Obama's decision to keep the war going without congressional approval as a "usurpation" and an "egregious, ongoing breach of the separation of powers."
Still, Rigell can't quite get a majority of his colleagues to agree with him. Until he does, the legality of the war remains effectively academic, good for debate on blogs. Congress still hasn't voted to defund a military operation since Vietnam (though old Contra supporters might quibble). But it's coming closer to pulling the trigger on its only real anti-war weapon.
Photo: Flickr/AlJazeeraEnglish
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