The New York Times is pleased

The End of the Perpetual War

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"For the first time, a president stated clearly and unequivocally that the state of perpetual warfare that began nearly 12 years ago is unsustainable for a democracy and must come to an end in the not-too-distant future."

If we need to, America can fight for decades without the least harm or impediment to democracy, ours or anyone else's.

Repeal of the AUMF will end any legal basis for treating anyone as a combatant, lawful or not, and put all future terrorist captives in the category of lawbreakers to be handled in the usual way by the usual courts.

No more renditions, black holes, or indefinite detentions with or without harsh interrogation.

And if repeal means that in law if not in fact the war is over then persons now held in essence as POWs will have to be released unless tried and convicted for some specific crime.

None of this is or would be prudent without the sorts of changes in the law suggested a long time ago by Alan Dershowitz and others enabling special treatment for Muslim terrorists that your paper would surely do all in its power to prevent.

Too, it will mean the president can continue military action abroad, with or without targeted killing by drone attack or otherwise, against al-Qaeda or affiliated others, only so far as he is constitutionally entitled to act without congressional sanction.

Given the views of the NYT, I expect you will be castigating him for pretty much anything he might attempt, openly or in secret.

That, also, is not prudent.

Of course, the AUMF never covered all Muslim terrorists or even all Muslim terrorists operating as parts of the widespread, if loose, network of Muslim quasi-military organizations to be found all over the Islamic world.

It only covered al-Qaeda and, at something of a stretch, its so-called "affiliates" in Africa, Arabia,and elsewhere.

But those special measures I alluded to above, if prudentially justified at all, are so in connection only with such well-organized, well-financed, and dedicated terrorism.

In practice, as a rule, and at least for now, that means only in connection with Muslim terrorism conducted by any of these same quasi-military organizations, whether or not affiliated with al-Qaeda, loosely or otherwise.

That would not include, I think, the Boston Bombers or people like those two loons in Britain, the other day.