COLUMN LEFT : The Shirking Cowards of Capitol Hill : By abdicating authority on war and peace, Congress betrays the American people.

In their zeal to divide power among branches of the federal government, the craftsmen of the Constitution neglected one possibility--a Congress that would willingly, even gladly, abdicate its authority and responsibility.

The country stands at the edge of war. The issue of war and peace is clearly for Congress to debate and decide. The Constitution says so. But they simply don’t want to do it. And so decision is left by default in the hands of George Bush.

Until recently, it was possible to criticize the President for acting without constitutional authorization, for ignoring the legislative prerogatives and the illuminations of public debate. But that criticism is no longer valid. Congressional leaders have made it plain that they do not want to be called into session to consider whether thousands of Americans should be sent into battle against Iraq. They have no desire to take a position on an issue that, by law, is theirs to decide.

And the reason is clear: cowardice.

Take a small jump of imagination. Think of Congress--shorthand for the Democratic Party--as a single individual inwardly musing on the U.S. Army now poised to strike at Iraq and at the complex diplomatic maneuvers now in progress to avoid, justify or rationalize the carnage that might ensue. Further, as a convenient literary ellipsis, let us give this person a name, perhaps a spiritual label consistent with his mythical character. Call him “Nun” (with apologies to the senator from Georgia).

“If George is successful,” Nun reflects, “then we can proudly claim our share in the triumph. (‘Victory has a thousand fathers’). If a failure, then it will be the President’s defeat (which is, as you know, an ‘orphan’).”

So phrased, it seems a no-lose situation. Except, of course, for the tens of thousands who might be killed or wounded, and for the multitude of Americans who will ultimately lose their jobs or be further impoverished by an enterprise whose cost must inevitably wound an already-tottering economy.

Studiously perusing his copy of the Federalist Papers, Nun learns that Congress alone has the power to debate and decide the issue of war. “However,” he reminds himself, “there is no stated requirement that says we must do this if we don’t want to. Admittedly, the Founding Fathers seemed to assume that a grant of power implied a responsibility for its exercise. But that was hundreds of years ago. And things have changed.”

Indeed. And not for the better. At least not in the direction of democracy. Over the last few decades, Congress has gradually abdicated decisions of war and peace--life and death--to the single individual who happens to be the transient occupant of the White House.

Until now, the peak of self-denial came during the Vietnam War, when Congress--with a few honorable exceptions--allowed the President to conduct, on his own, the largest and probably the most damaging conflict in American history--the beginning of our decline as a military and economic superpower. We learned a lot from that war, but not, it seems, the most important lesson of all: that in a democracy, the people--supposedly sovereign--have the right to a public debate on questions of such portent. And the only forum in which public views can be educated and expressed is Congress.

Thus the issue is not whether to fight Iraq but the viability of democracy itself. It is possible that public and congressional dialogue would result in complete support for the President. Even a declaration of war. If that happened--which I doubt--it would, at least, be the freely taken decision of a free people. It would be democracy.

However, it is not democracy when the most critical and far-reaching decisions of policy are made by one man huddled in a secret conference behind sealed doors in a large white house on Pennsylvania Avenue. Nor is the careful, somewhat fearful monitoring of public-opinion polls an exercise in freedom.

Yet Congress, and the party that controls it, are content--more than content, positively relieved--to allow, even encourage, this outrageous infringement of our right, as a free people, to debate and decide the direction of the nation.

Whatever happens in the gulf, this episode will be recorded as a collapse--hopefully transient--in the process of democracy. And for a Congress that allowed it, there will be a place in the annals of American shame. They will not only have betrayed their oath to the Constitution, but their most high and solemn duty to the people who entrusted them with office.