The Bush Administration's "Enabling Act"

The New American writes:

"In early December, without a word of public notice, the Justice Department placed on its website a lengthy September 25, 2001 memorandum entitled 'The President's Constitutional Authority to Conduct Military Operations Against Terrorists and Nations Supporting Them.' That document sets out, on behalf of the Bush administration, a plainly totalitarian view of presidential power...

"In defiance of the unambiguous text of the Constitution, the Yoo memo declares: 'If the Framers had wanted to require congressional consent before the initiation of hostilities, they knew how to write such provisions.' As noted above, the Framers of the Constitution did exactly that — and the most influential among them pointedly reiterated that principle on numerous occasions.

"As James Madison, the 'Father of the Constitution,' wrote in a 1792 letter to Thomas Jefferson, 'the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It [the Constitution] has accordingly with studied care, vested the question of war in the Legislature.' Hamilton, who was notable in his zeal for a strong executive, noted in a 1793 essay: 'It is the province and duty of the Executive to preserve to the Nation the blessings of peace. The Legislature alone can interrupt those blessings, by placing the Nation in a state of War.'..."

The Bush Administration's "Enabling Act"