Presidential War Power

Rating:
Summary: Congress' Critic
Review: Although some background in constitutional law may be helpful, this book is very readable. Fisher is a thorough scholar, but he is also honest in giving vent to his frustration with Congress' cessation of war power in the modern evolution of Executive-Legislative relations.

This book is a great resource for historical and anecdotal information on the constitutional balance of power between the President and the Congress. Well-cited, and with a firm basis in constitutional logic and theory, Fisher develops a clear case that -although it does take on a diatribal flavor at times- does not require academic contortions to be demonstrated.

The criticism of the War Powers Act is very powerful, and needs to be understood more broadly in America. The unconstitutionality of the act is one reason it is never seriously invoked by the President or insisted upon by Congress, yet many people still refer to it as the crux for understanding the war powers balance between the Presidency and the Congress.

An excellent book for anyone interested in Constitutional allocation of power; useful for students, professors, and the concerned citizen.

Rating:
Summary: Congress Good, President Bad
Review: Constitutional scholar Louis Fisher has done a magnificent job capturing the history of what he calls "presidential warmaking" -- that is, the tendency of presidents to usurp Congress's Constitutional war-making power. Fisher is not persuaded by claims advanced by modern presidents -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- that the Commander-in-Chief clause grants them broad discretionary war-making powers. His book is a long legal brief in favor of returning the war powers to the Congress.

At times, Fisher's belief in the rightness of his cause borders on the polemic. Though he recognizes that Congress has been complicit in presidential war-making, he reserves his harshest criticism for the presidents themselves. Arguably, however, it takes two to tango; if Congress actually *wanted* the war powers, it could take them "back." But as research shows, it is easier -- and therefore more palatable -- to sit on the sidelines, sniping at the president in case of failure or claiming a share of the credit after success.

No student of American politics or American foreign policy can plausibly claim to discuss the role of the executive branch in military/foreign policy without having digested Fisher's book.

Rating:
Summary: Congress Good, President Bad
Review: Constitutional scholar Louis Fisher has done a magnificent job capturing the history of what he calls "presidential warmaking" -- that is, the tendency of presidents to usurp Congress's Constitutional war-making power. Fisher is not persuaded by claims advanced by modern presidents -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- that the Commander-in-Chief clause grants them broad discretionary war-making powers. His book is a long legal brief in favor of returning the war powers to the Congress.

At times, Fisher's belief in the rightness of his cause borders on the polemic. Though he recognizes that Congress has been complicit in presidential war-making, he reserves his harshest criticism for the presidents themselves. Arguably, however, it takes two to tango; if Congress actually *wanted* the war powers, it could take them "back." But as research shows, it is easier -- and therefore more palatable -- to sit on the sidelines, sniping at the president in case of failure or claiming a share of the credit after success.

No student of American politics or American foreign policy can plausibly claim to discuss the role of the executive branch in military/foreign policy without having digested Fisher's book.