Its also important to note that Clinton's claim that a President needs to get Congress's permission to react to killing American troops and making war on the United States is a new one for her.

She didn't always feel that way — especially when her husband ignored Congress in using force in the Balkans (where, of course, no one was murdering American forces or making war on the United States):

    "It would be a mistake of historical proportion if the administration thought that the 2002 resolution authorizing force against Iraq was a blank check for the use of force against Iran without further congressional authorization," Mrs. Clinton said [yesterday]. "Nor should the president think that the 2001 resolution authorizing force after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in any way authorizes force against Iran. If the administration believes that any, any use of force against Iran is necessary, the president must come to Congress to seek that authority."

    That position is at odds with President Clinton's unilateral decision to bomb Serb military targets beginning on March 26, 1999, when America and NATO launched a war to stop Slobodan Milosevic from cleansing the province of Kosovo of ethnic Albanians.

    Twenty-six members of Congress later sued the Clinton administration on the grounds that the bombing campaign constituted a violation of the War Powers Act. Mr. Clinton's Justice Department argued at the time that the War Powers Act not only gave the president the authority to drop the bombs on Belgrade — over two congressional votes rejecting a declaration of war on Yugoslavia — but that he was not required to seek congressional approval because Congress had appropriated the funding to launch the air offensive.

    Mrs. Clinton defended the Kosovo campaign in a speech on October 10, 2002, before casting her vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq. "We and our NATO allies did not depose Mr. Milosevic, who was responsible for more than a quarter of a million people being killed in the 1990s. Instead, by stopping his aggression in Bosnia and Kosovo, and keeping on the tough sanctions, we created the conditions in which his own people threw him out and led to his being in the dock being tried for war crimes as we speak," she said in the 2002 speech. Milosevic died in prison in the Hague in 2006.