Plenary Power Officially Over

When will Democratic presidents learn they are never to be Commander in Chief?

Just a hint, the last president to have his war powers checked by Congress was Bill Clinton in 1999.

*Update:

The problem with the Libya vote is not that the House sent a strong signal to the president that they don't like his ability to wage war without their approval, it's that the House sent a signal to the president that they don't like his ability to wage war without their approval but did nothing to prevent him from continuing to do so. 

I'm all for checks and balances and find it quite odd that Congress only realizes it can keep presidents from invading countries, killing people and spending billions of dollars doing so when a Democrat is at the helm.  Something like this would have never happened under Reagan or the Bushies.  Alas, though, the real ineptitude comes from Congress exceedingly failing to lead.  As Matt Yglesias stated, "[i]t’s not so much that we have executive branch power grabs as it is that congress pretty consistently fails to use the leverage that it actually has. Someone who was really determined to block the war in Libya could make an end to the bombing a condition of supporting a debt ceiling increase. When in the seventies congressional majorities were possessed of a strong and sincere desire to restrain Gerald Ford’s conduct, they turned out to have a lot of ability to do so. And members of congress have always had a good success rate fighting and winning battles to keep military bases open, keep favored defense contracts flowing, etc. It’s just that to win a political fight, you need to really care."

Caring and pretending are two very different things I suppose.  All this goes to say that as much as Republicans are trying to appear as if they now all of a sudden care about waging war and spending money, they really only care about keeping Democrats from doing it.  When it came to actually defunding the war and stopping it they balked.