This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011. I'm Caleb Brown.

If we take it seriously, the Obama administration's legal rationale for making war in Libya

has some frightening implications.

Chris Preble, Director of Foreign Policy Studies at theato Institute comments.

This is Senator Barack Obama in 2007, no more ignoring the law when it's inconvenient. The separation of powers works. Our

Constitution works. We will set an example for the world that the law is not

subject to the whims of stubborn rulers and that justice is not arbitrary.

So contrast that with the assertions that the Obama administration has made repeatedly in recent weeks regarding

their power to drop non-war bombs on Libya?

Well, the president obviously has had a change of heart now that he's the president and not a

senator, junior senator from Illinois, not a candidate for the presidency.

He's not the first of course to change his mind when you know he

changes his seat as it were but I think the the rationales that the administration has put forward, the

president, some of his senior legal advisors, although there has been some dispute we've learned among his different legal

advisors, but the official position of the administration is essentially that the

endorsement of the Libyan mission by the UN Security Council suffices as not just cover, but actual legal rationale.

And I think it's that aspect of their argument that is,

aside from the rhetorical gymnastics that they've engaged in,

it's that aspect which I think is quite

upsetting to a lot of Americans. The notion that somehow the UN Charter is more

important to the conduct of US.S. foreign policy than the Constitution does not sit

well even with people who might otherwise be inclined to support the Libyan operation on its

...