[tater]

It is of course funny that both the President and VP were both against any "unilateral" action on the part of the Executive branch (and unilateral in the clear terms of the question and answer back then meant Congress vs Executive, it had nothing at all to do with other nations).

I'm willing to cut them some slack on their weak action (clearly the time to "act!" was earlier rather than later), but they should explicitly apologize to the Bush Administration for their smack-talk.

Can be low-key, they can say at a press conf, "Ya know, back in 200X (whatever year it was), I talked some smack from the cheap seats about the President acting without the permission of congress. Now that I really understand what executive decision making is about, it turns out me earlier statements were rash."

I think that the power of Congress to declare war, is a very specific wording and separate from allowing military action. OTOH, back in the day, there was no standing army, so to do military action, the President needed to first raise an army. Even the early USN ships were not ready to sail at all times to save money—though some were usually ready with masts stepped, yards crossed, etc.

Giving the current president exactly what he gave the previous one is sorta funny. You know the dems would do it were the tables turned (since we have the Biden and Obama quotes to prove it). Calling him to the carpet for HIS hypocrisy is totally legit, though I think it's a Commander in Chief decision to make and won't attack him on having the power to make it.