Our so-called constitutional conservatives treat the national charter the way a certain kind of Christian treats the Bible: They like to carry around copies of it, to wave it at their rivals, to talk about it, and to treat it as a kind of magic item — but if you should suggest they actually read it or apply it, well, that sounds awfully idealistic.

It is painful, and a little embarrassing, to listen to conservatives try to rationalize President Donald Trump’s plainly illegal attack on the government of murderous Syrian caudillo Bashar al-Assad. Each rationalization is shallower and sillier than the last.

. . .

One of the things that are supposed to distinguish conservatives from progressives — and once did — is an abiding respect for, even a cherishing of, process. Woodrow Wilson and his ilk despised the Constitution, just as our would-be political-speech police despise it today, because it stands in the way of what they believe to be the right thing. And no doubt it sometimes does stand in the way of the right thing — the point of the Constitution is to create a political order with a particular character, not to ensure that we get our preferred outcome in every federal matter. To see conservatives adopt the outcome-above-order attitude in a matter as important as launching a preemptive war in Syria is dispiriting.

Congressional Republicans have two choices: One, they can censure the president and insist that no further action be taken without legal authorization. Two, they can stop calling themselves “constitutional conservatives,” because those who knuckle under now are no such thing.

Censure the President

Ozymandias