In peacetime the Congress has traditionally been bolder in asserting its authority. Perhaps the luxury of indulging weaker executives which peace affords the electorate contributes to this tendency. Of those Presidents regarded as promoting a strong executive (Jackson, Lincoln, TR, Wilson, FDR, Truman, Reagan, and W), only Jackson wasn’t faced with war or the imminent threat thereof, and he did face the “Nullification” crisis and the Indian relocation issues, whose national security implications were apparent.

Success in Iraq has drastically reduced the scope and cost of the war being prosecuted worldwide, so Obama and the Democrats – not to mention their acolytes among the working press and mindless public – will treat the current situation as being primarily a domestic concern best dealt with by the infusion of rabid government spending. The Congress views every spending bill as a pork opportunity while the President hopes for enough economic effect to ensure his popularity and reelection. Conflict is intrinsic to the moment and the most likely resolution is a bloated bill which accommodates all supplicants.

It is awful policy, of course, and liable to do much more economic harm than good, but it is also the nature of contemporary politics and an insurmountable one when Democrats wield power. We never seem to learn, do we?

Obama’s master stroke here is in realizing that he and his team aren’t creative enough to come up with every possible method of spending money we don’t have to rescue us from a crisis that he and his legislative accomplices helped to create (and really isn’t as much of a crisis as they are leading us to believe).