Dave wrote:
The scope of the President's power in foreign relations was extensively
debated by Madison and Hamilton, with Hamilton arguing for the more
expansive view and Madison taking the more restrictive view. Suffice it to
say that Hamilton's view prevailed. The President has broad power in the
field of foreign relations, including the power to make threats. Do you not
recall the Cuban missile crisis?

To actually carry through on those threats, on the other hand, may well
require action by Congress, and that in itself acts as something of a
restraint on diplomacy.

Dave, you're obfuscating. Hamilton never said anything to the effect
that "The President must be granted the power to threaten immediate war,
with any foreign country, for any or no reason, without any regard to
other authority." Kennedy certainly never called Kruschev on the red
phone and said "Listen you commie fag, I'm sending 10,000 paratroopers
to Moscow to smack you with baseball bats, the planes should be overhead
any minute now." Your claims are ridiculous.

If this were true, then how come Nixon got in trouble for bombing in
Cambodia? How come some factions of the Republicans are still furious
with Clinton for getting invovled in the former Yugoslavia? How come
Bush & Cheney didn't just invade Iraq whenever they wanted, and let
Congress go cry in their soup?

The President does have broad powers, and this can include threats of
war *within* the context of already ongoing diplomacy. The President
cannot treat the U.S. military as though it were his privately owned
video game. Is this what "conservatives" beleive now??

Regards
Doug King