Come the Constitutional Crisis

My sentiments exactly:

the president has ignored the Congress, not consulted the 110th Congress in any real way, has ignored the now longstanding views of the majority of the country's citizens and wants to plow ahead with an expansion of his own failed and overwhelmingly repudiated policy. The need for Congress to assert itself in such a case transcends the particulars of Iraq policy. It's important to confirm the democratic character of the state itself. The president is not a king. He is not a Stuart. And one more Hail Mary pass for George W. Bush's legacy just isn't a good enough reason for losing more American lives, treasure and prestige.

With this President, even more so than Nixon, Congress has no choice but to aggressively assert its constitutional prerogatives in defense of the popular will. War-making is not an area where Congress may merely advise and consent; as C.J. Marshall put it in Talbot v. Seeman (1801), Congress has the "whole powers of war" save, arguably, the tactical battleground decisions and emergency response powers implicit in the commander in chief clause.