Merely to suggest such alternatives is to remind ourselves of
the inherent inadvisability of contemplating them. The
Constitution makes the president the commander in chief. To
permit the continuance of his responsibility while stripping him
of the means to act is a device for modifying the Constitution,
for which critics would be reluctant to accept responsibility. If
a crisis is of such a reach, then the orderly procedure is the
impeachment of the president.
But the people who went to the polls on Tuesday intending to
register opposition to the war are not of revolutionary mettle.
Still, they have found the means to make demands that the
president will need to appease.
The analysts added, to the Iraq dissent, the wells of
dissatisfaction over other executive derelictions. We heard from
the solid base of conservatives who identify good government with
the Republican Party. They spoke their opposition to a president
who has not once used his constitutional power to resist
spendthrift measures by Congress. He has not accosted directly,
let alone relieved, the problems raised by helter-skelter
immigration laws. And he simply gave up on reforming a Social
Security system that cannot fulfill its commitments.
What this has meant is a dissociation from the normal
allegiance a democratic republic feels for its duly elected
leadership. And that dissociation was written by the voters'
feet, making indelible marks on the sand.