First Hillary voted for the godawful Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, claiming that classifying Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization somehow “reaffirms [her] policy of engagement” and “robust diplomacy”(!). Now she’s co-sponsoring the Webb Amendment, which purports to require congressional approval before Bush can attack Iran. But:

[I]t allows the following exceptions: First, military operations or activities that would directly repel an attack launched from within the territory of Iran. Second, those activities that would directly thwart an imminent attack that would be launched from Iran. Third, military operations or activities that would be in hot pursuit of forces engaged outside the territory of Iran who thereafter would enter Iran.

Those look like some pretty big exceptions to me, especially considering Seymour Hersh’s latest missive in the New Yorker:

[T]wo former senior officials of the C.I.A. told me that, by late summer, the agency had increased the size and the authority of the Iranian Operations Group… “They’re moving everybody to the Iran desk,” one recently retired C.I.A. official said. “They’re dragging in a lot of analysts and ramping up everything. It’s just like the fall of 2002”—the months before the invasion of Iraq, when the Iraqi Operations Group became the most important in the agency.

(Mmm… stovepipe stuffing…) There’s no way all those analysts might be pressured to find evidence of an imminent attack, right? I mean, it’s not like the Bush administration would ever politicize intelligence.

So, basically, Hillary backs a bill that affirms what is already codified in the Constitution, and then pokes it with loopholes big enough to drive armored columns through. I just can’t see how offering Dubya exemptions from the Constitution is supposed to be a good idea – at least make him use a signing statement or something.

This sounds an awful lot like the AUMF all over again, where Hillary and the other Democrats who voted for it believed (supposedly) that Dubya would act in good faith, despite all evidence to the contrary. But this time the Democrats are actually punking themselves, knowing full well what happened the last time.

If Webb and Clinton have any sense they’ll take the exceptions out of the bill, in which case I can wholeheartedly support it, even though it’s more symbolic than anything else. (”Democratic bill says Constitution still relevant!”) It would probably go down in flames, but at least the Republicans and Bush Dogs would be forced to declare their undying love for war.

If they decide to leave the exceptions in, then we’re entitled to a really good explanation of what purpose they serve. We already know that Congress is perfectly capable of rocketing Really Bad Ideas through both houses just on the president’s say-so. And if the Democrats have doubts about rushing into something so momentous, they can just insert a sunset clause so the war expires in six months.

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