Greenwald: Obama v. Obama on signing statements

[SpartanDem]

Obama v. Obama on signing statements

The issue of signing statements is more complex than the political controversy over them suggests. When condemning Bush/Cheney lawlessness, I rarely focused on their use of signing statements. That was true for several reasons.

There's nothing inherently illegitimate about a President's expressing his view on various laws. It's vastly preferable for a President to openly declare his intent to violate the law than to do so secretly. Signing statements themselves are just instruments for conveying constitutional views of the law; whether they're truly odious depends upon the view that is being expressed (what made Bush so radical were the theories of executive omnipotence he embraced, not his use of signing statements to express those views).

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/17/signing_statements/index.html



I would say I'm surprised the he's attacking Obama over this, but given past practices I'm not. Quite frankly, I'm Obama gave Republicans the finger over the czar issue.

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[tekisui]

2. knr

[Pirate Smile]

3. In a 2007 interview, Obama clearly carves out exception for attack on the Executive Branch:

"4. Under what circumstances, if any, would you sign a bill into law but also issue a signing statement reserving a constitutional right to bypass the law?

Signing statements have been used by presidents of both parties, dating back to Andrew Jackson. While it is legitimate for a president to issue a signing statement to clarify his understanding of ambiguous provisions of statutes and to explain his view of how he intends to faithfully execute the law, it is a clear abuse of power to use such statements as a license to evade laws that the president does not like or as an end-run around provisions designed to foster accountability.

I will not use signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law. The problem with this administration is that it has attached signing statements to legislation in an effort to change the meaning of the legislation, to avoid enforcing certain provisions of the legislation that the President does not like, and to raise implausible or dubious constitutional objections to the legislation. The fact that President Bush has issued signing statements to challenge over 1100 laws – more than any president in history – is a clear abuse of this prerogative. No one doubts that it is appropriate to use signing statements to protect a president's constitutional prerogatives; unfortunately, the Bush Administration has gone much further than that."

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/specials/CandidateQA/ObamaQA/