Mickey Edwards joins the chorus:
The "I'm King" scenario is bad enough, but Obama also has a second story available if we're not ready to buy that one. In this tale, Obama acted not as a king, but under the authority granted to him by the United Nations Security Council. But while the Founders had their disagreements, none ever envisioned that the question of whether or not to send Americans on a military mission would be left up to other nations. Obama assumed authority for the Libyan adventure on two false premises, not one.
Charlie Savage has, however, defused one of the more outrageous claims for presidential authority allegedly made by secretary of state Clinton, first reported at TPM:
In a phone interview, Mr. Sherman said that he had actually asked whether the administration believed it was bound to obey the 60-day deadline. And Mrs. Clinton gave no definitive response either way, he said. “Everything I heard about the War Powers Act was evasive and vague,” Mr. Sherman said, adding that Mrs. Clinton had also sidestepped questions by other lawmakers in the briefing.
Mrs. Clinton’s demurral, he also said, was essentially identical to the public performance of the Deputy Secretary of State, James B. Steinberg, when Mr. Sherman asked him the same question at an unclassified hearing on Thursday.
In that exchange (which starts at the 5:29 mark of this clip), Mr. Sherman repeatedly pressed Mr. Steinberg to say whether the administration will comply with the 60-day provision. Mr. Steinberg tried various ways to avoid answering the question, ultimately saying “it’s a question that cannot be answered in the abstract.”