It's really great to argue for more input when it comes to all
aspects of war, especially the waging of it in the first place. Wittes
and Goldsmith seem incredibly naive, however, in presuming that
Congress is champing at the bit to make any hard decisions. Recall that
Congress did vote on an authorization of force; recall also that
Congress has shied away from actually declaring war for many decades
now. They might not like some aspects of the Imperial Presidency, but
they are also cowards when it comes to the sort of decisions that they
might actually be held accountable for.
In any case, citing FDR
in this context strikes me a tin-eared to the extreme. Didn't he use an
executive order to intern what, 100,000 Japanese Americans during World
War II? That was a unilateralist action that had moral support in
Congress, sure, but was far worse than anything Bush or Obama dreamed
up, much less acted on. The order was also refused by Mountain State
governors, to their credit. Read Eric Muller's great Reason piece on that racially driven hysterical legacy of FDR.