I'm all for it: go to France and say, We're going to invade _____. France could assert the right of first refusal, and we would invade them instead.

Compromising international bridges? (Well I guess you can't burn 'em more, seeing as they're mostly steel and concrete.)

Still, I'd say old Wesley has completely compromised whatever bridges he has left with reality.

Or with semantics, for that matter.

The student has learned well. He just exceeded the master.

The only remaining question is if the shrew will continue the play.

Sen. Leahy got kicked off the Senate Intelligence Committee for exercising right of first refusal, and now we're going to give it to France?

I think Wesley's point (if you can read between the smoking girders) is that since the French generally refuse anyway (and they're usually the first to do so), we're not giving away anything. It's merely an acknowledgement.

Clever of him to get us all so overwrought like that....

SRP: Run for President and you'll get my wife's vote.

Treasonous? No.
Unpresidential? Hell yea.

The problem is that right of first refusal is far too vague for an actual conviction. There's still a lot of time to the primaries, much less the general election. Gen. Clark has an obligation to define exactly what that meant.

It wouldn't be treason until he actually got elected and did it.

I'm not sure whether what General Clark is proposing as his (putative) administration's policy would be treasonous, since his statement is so vaguely worded. If, by the "right of first refusal" he means that the US should consult our allies first and seek their cooperation before undertaking any military action, then I fail to see how Clark's formulation differs in any way from the procedure Bush followed over the question of Iraq.

The "right of first refusal" gives someone the option of agreeing to perform certain defined actions prior to anyone else. If the party enjoying the right of first refusal fails to exercise that option, however (i.e., declines to take the action specified), the other party (or parties) retain the right of independent action. Isn't this what Bush did with respect to Iraq? He approached our European allies and said, "we intend to take strong action to resolve our long-standing problems with Saddam Hussein. Whatever you decide, we're going to go ahead because we believe this is necessary for our national security. We'd like your support; what do you say?" After a lot of back-and-forth and posturing, the French, Germans, Russians, etc., said "nothing doing". The US then went ahead with the "coalition of the willing" to depose Saddam Hussein's regime. So, we gave them the "right of first refusal" and they blew us off.

OTOH, if Clark is proposing to give our allies a veto (as opposed to a "right of first refusal") over any proposed US action to protect America's national security, then what he is proposing violates the oath that every president is required by the Constitution to take when he/she assumes office. The President's oath requires that he/she "will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." This oath imposes on the President the duty to act in defense of the territory of the United States, its Constitution and government, and the American people. The President may not delegate this responsibility to anyone else, and he/she certainly may not confer it by default on any foreign head of state. To attempt to do so violates the President's oath of office, and would arguably amount to an impeachable offense.

IMO, this would be so even in the absence of the presidential oath. I agree with Winston Churchill, who once asserted, "The responsibility of ministers for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact the prime object for which governments come into existence."

I doubt Clark would actually do it if he were president and a situation similar to 9/11 occurred, but he is willing to lie about planning to do it in order to court Howard Dean's primary voters and others who will be key in the Democratic elections and caucuses. That certainly doesn't bode well for his honesty in other day-to-day duties of the president, which given the principles of his patron and the people advising him, shouldn't come as any surprise.

If he keeps this up, what's going to be refused is Rhodes Scholarships. He's ruining a fine reputation. Rhodes's, not his.