> Even worse, however, is the continued conduct of open hostilities in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State despite the refusal of Congress to approve the m

> Even worse, however, is the continued conduct of open hostilities in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State despite the refusal of Congress to approve the military campaign. No one questions that the Constitution applies here; but because the two branches are unable to agree on the scope of American intervention, this most crucial of constitutional guarantees—the power of Congress to authorize military action—has gone by the board. I always felt the story here was more institutional, and not so much about Obama himself the man. If Congress is fractured and ineffectual, that creates a power vacuum. And another branch of government will step into that power vacuum, every single time. We're supposed to be set up with a systems of checks and balances, and when those don't work, the system doesn't work. I don't mean to blame Congress for what Obama did, but they didn't really meaningfully resist these things that he did. Your guess as to whether that's because they didn't want to, or they weren't able. They did keep signing the checks, so there's that.