A War, a Democracy and a Vice President

By Mike Lillis 03/24/2008 11:43AM

Lest anyone think that criticism of Vice President Dick Cheney's now-infamous contempt for public opinion surrounding the Iraq war is a partisan contrivance, former GOP congressman Mickey Edwards had a revealing piece in The Washington Post Saturday, arguing that executive branch recognition of public sentiment in wartime is not just in everyone's interest, it's also the administration's constitutional duty.

Here's Edwards:

The decision to go to war... -- to send young Americans off to battle, knowing that some will die -- is the single most difficult choice any public official can be called upon to make. That is precisely why the nation's Founders, aware of the deadly wars of Europe, deliberately withheld from the executive branch the power to engage in war unless such action was expressly approved by the people themselves, through their representatives in Congress.

Cheney told Raddatz that American war policy should not be affected by the views of the people. But that is precisely whose views should matter: It is the people who should decide whether the nation shall go to war. That is not a radical or liberal, or unpatriotic idea. It is the very heart of America's constitutional system.