Tell that to all the people who have spent months threatening impeachment (as usual) if he did not seek congressional permission for force.

As stated above, I agree with the War Powers Resolution there: A sustained military campaign is de facto war and should therefore require the Senates de jure declaration of such. However, as also stated above, since the Constitution never defines war the War Powers Resolutions constitutional validity is debatable. The funding mechanism is the 2012 US budget; declared wars inevitably receive specific appropriations each year, and anything less is covered under the general defense budget maintaining equipment, training and troop strength.

What the president is getting criticized for now and always is being a Democrat. While I agree all presidents have constitutional authority as commander-in-chief to order combat without Congressional consent, Republicans calling for impeachment if any Democrat (and only a Democrat) does so disagree.

That was their view with Clinton on Kosovo, Rwanda and Somalia (even though his predecessor ordered US troops into the last.) Likewise Iraq: They declared cruise missile enforcement of the No Fly Zone unconstitutional, wasteful and needless, insisting use of finite million dollar missiles was extravagantly costly and decreased US military readiness in a needless fight against an impotent unthreatening Saddam. Just three years later they insisted just as strongly we send hundreds of thousands of US soldiers on half a dozen or more exhausting demoralizing combat tours costing trillions of dollars to depose that same impotent non-threat.

With Obama it is the same song, second verse: In 2012 we had to impeach Obama because he did not send US forces to help depose Libyas anti-US dictator, then had to impeach him because he did, then had to impeach him because he did not ALSO send ground forces to protect our consulate. Never mind your correct reminder that costs money Congress must approve, and House Republicans denied half a billion dollars in 2011 and 2012 embassy security funding because (as Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) put it after Benghazi) security funding was not a "priority." Somehow, despite all that, just a few weeks later Rep. Chaffetz suggested (you guessed it) impeachment over Benghazi; impeaching Obama is ALWAYS a priority for the party that declared limiting him to one term their top legislative priority in 2009.

Syria is the latest variation on a tired theme: First Obama should be impeached because he will not act, then because he will and now because seeking the very congressional approval Republicans demanded he seek. Seriously, wtf do they want from him? Even doing just as they command earns only continual public denunciation.

Obama is not asking congressional approval because he means to go forward even without it; he does not need it (as we both agree.) He is asking congressional approval for unpopular combat operations with little upside because he knows that approval is VERY unlikely, and its refusal will let him off the hook for his "red line" remark. He does not want to abdicate his constitutional AUTHORITY to order combat as commander-in-chief, but will not trumpet it too loudly since this whole exercise is solely to let him excuse breaking his pledge on the grounds he must abide by the peoples will and Congress' constitutional authority.

His vassilation still does not excuse the "loyal" opposition threatening impeachment for anything and everything he does, even things they spent six months demanding under that same threat of impeachment. That vicious partisanship at the expense of governance and the nations welfare is a big motive in his vassilation.