Obama on Signing Statements

Hi, Karen!

I have a serious question: both you and Joe Klein have been (justifiably) critical of GWB’s presidential actions in recent postings. I’m really happy to see this.

But it seems to me that the both of you were a lot more timid in calling out these actions in real time, as they occurred. Only after Obama was inaugurated have the both of you been willing to call out Bush, using surprisingly strong language that never appeared in earlier posts.

Do you perceive a greater (editorial?) willingness to call a spade a spade now that the Dems are in control of the White House? If so, what gives? It’s not like this stuff was secret when it was going on: all you had to do was visit the “left-wing” (read, “honest”) sites to find out.

Why the change? And how can we plebes trust the media when they are evidently unwilling to speak truth to power, as long as it’s in power?

Yeeees! Wonderful! It will be so nice to have a President who doesn’t believe he is king of America instead of President.

Obama is simply taking the same approach as Bush (i.e. “I have the power to ignore statutory laws enacted by Congress based upon my interpretation of the Constitution”).
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The bottom line here is that no President should have this kind of power — its Congress’s job to pass laws, and the President’s to implement them as passed. At best, a “signing statement” should be used to delay implementation of statutory provisions of questionable Constitutionality for a very short period of time, i.e. pending submission of a request for injunctive relief from the provision pending review of the provision by the Courts.

The Rule of Law — it’s not just for breakfast anymore.

pluk, I’m willing to wait and see what kind of signing statements he writes rather than dismissing them out of hand as the same as Bush, who did more than all the other Presidents combined.

Now how about those Republicans!
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http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/09/meghan-mccain-calls-ann-coulter-offensive-and-insulting/
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Meghan slaps the female Rush Limbaugh!
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Will she be forced to apologize? Will Ann Coulter mud wrestle Rush Limbaugh for King of the Stoopid? Is it swords out between the Dittohead Army and PUMAs? Will they fence with anal lightning bolts?

KT: Thanks for posting this thread about signing statements. Like the link said, Bush used the signing statements about twice as many times as all the other previous presidents combined. When Obama was running for office, I would have been happy if he delivered on even a third of his campaign pledges. Less than 2 months into his administration, I’m still very happy.

@pluk,
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The President is sworn first and foremost to uphold the Constitution. If he has a concern about the Constitutionality of a statute then he has an affirmative duty to make note of it.
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Needless to say this contrast sharply with the Nixon-to-Frost rules that have been in play since GWB ascended to power.
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I find it ironic that you would expect LESS adherence to original intent than what the administration is providing.

Seriously though, Obama is doing a great job of restoring integrity into government with these things. His approach to scientific integrity and the role of politics is also commendable.
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The only thing I really, really, really don’t like is Orszag saying they’ll clean up pork after they pass this budget.
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I don’t often criticize Obama and his staff, I know they are doing the best they can, but this really sounds like something an alcaholic would say after downing his last drink!

A practice that was “abused”? No bias showing there, KT?

The point about signing statements that is lost is twofold–first, when a president signs legislation into law, his view of what he is signing is important–kind of in the same way legislative history is important, at least in the view of some judges. Not me, by the way, but the President certainly has the right to make known what he thinks he is signing. Second, a president should not enforce a law that he thinks is unconstitutional. The president, obviously, can rely on court pronouncements, etc., but he is an independent constitutional actor. His highest duty is to the Constitution.

Plukasiak obviously never heard of the advisory opinion prohibition.

53_3: Coulter is a woman? Calling it a she is presumptive. A fight between Coulter and Limbaugh would be unfair. He’d eat it alive. We can only hope he’s not bulemic.

“His highest duty is to the Constitution.”
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He was? Hmmmmm. Most Americans just don’t agree with you, spoob. Like maybe 70+ percent. I guess it’s because of all that media bias, huh?

spob:
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While I understand that there is a purpose and legitimate need for signing statements, I think Charlie Savage’s work showed that it is fair to use the word “abuse” when talking about the way that President Bush used that power of his office.

Lest anybody for a moment think that spob and I are in agreement, The following is the section of the Constitution that GWB’s signing statements pointedly ignored:
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To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
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To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
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To provide and maintain a Navy;
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To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
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To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
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To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
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It’s clear that Obama is specifically reinstating the relevant sections with this memo.

“We can only hope he’s not bulemic.”
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sacredh, I honestly don’t think harfing it all up could be worse. After all, is a pile of poo any worse in a blender or in it’s natural, pristine form?

53_3: Watch John Waters’ Pink Flamingoes and then we’ll talk.

53_3
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There are good reasons why Orszag isn’t willing to wade into the omnibus debate. First and foremost it was negotiated in December and is only now being used by Republicans as a political ploy. They were all ready to vote for it until they decided it would be good politics to try to smear the Democrats with it. And a willing mainstream media continues to paint it as a Democratic Party problem even though the biggest earmarkers are Republicans and they have 40% of the earmarks in the bill and even though earmark reforms have already been enacted by the Democrats (how do you think we know whose name is on every earmark) and even though Republicans are refusing to remove their own earmarks. I could also point out that they make up less than 1% of the omnibus bill and that the overwhelming majority of the omnibus bill puts investments in places that progressives would be happy with like combatting health care fraud but that would be piling on. Yesterday Senator Schumer enumerated 3 things that Democrats have done to reform earmarks that you haven’t heard about in the media after all these weeks of calls of “pork barrelled spending”. For one they agreed to curtail them to less than 1 percent of the spending bill. For two they agreed to put them all online so people could see them. And for three they agreed to make everyone put their name on any earmark they wanted in. Earmarks aren’t necessarily “pork” and the reason for many of the earmarks being included was to get votes to pass the overall bill. Now those like David Vitter who have hundreds of millions of earmarks in the bill AND refuse to remove their own are calling it all pork to try to hurt President Obama. The stimulus bill didn’t have any earmarks in it and President Obama has promised to enact further reforms. But there are good reasons for a lot of those earmarks to be in the bill, even the ones with silly sounding names.

sg:
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You might have a point about this, but it’s another sound-bite for the ditzy dittoheads at a time we really don’t need them.
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Maybe they need to play up loudly the 40% of Republican earmarks, which, appearantly, is greater than their fair share of the goods, based on represetnation.
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Can you link to the Schumer comments, I’d like to see them.

Yeah, the earmark debate is grossly out of hand.
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Earmarks themselves are benign items–with the depressingly slow pace of getting legislation passed these days (emergency spending acts notwithstanding) its almost a necessity to get the most bang for your buck on bills already in the pipeline.
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In fact, most earmarks are great for state and local levels. They help communities and industries thrive and undertake worthy projects that might have otherwise languished without funding.
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The real problem is when you run into the real vanity project–the bridges to nowhere, if you will–where the cost is far too much or the benefit far too small to really justify the earmark’s existance. These (as of late, rare) riders are used to give all earmarks a bad name.
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And as the beaver gaffe shows, you can’t judge a project by its name.

From the article:
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Mr. Obama also signaled that he intends to use signing statements himself if Congress sends him legislation that has provisions he decides are unconstitutional. He pledged to use a modest approach when doing so, but said there was a role for the practice if used appropriately.
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“In exercising my responsibility to determine whether a provision of an enrolled bill is unconstitutional, I will act with caution and restraint, based only on interpretations of the Constitution that are well-founded,” Mr. Obama wrote in a memorandum to the heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch. The document was obtained by The New York Times.
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…[Bush's] use of signing statements prompted widespread debate. The American Bar Association declared that such signing statements were “contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers,” calling on Mr. Bush and all future presidents to stop using them and to return to a system of either signing a bill and then enforcing all of it, or vetoing the bill and giving Congress a chance to override that veto.
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But the Bush administration defended its use of signing statements as lawful and appropriate. And other legal scholars, while critical of Mr. Bush’s use of the device, said that the bar association’s view was too extreme because Congress sometimes passed important legislation that had minor constitutional flaws. They said it would be impractical to expect a president to veto the entire bill in such instances.
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In his memorandum, Mr. Obama wrote: “Particularly since omnibus bills have become prevalent, signing statements have often been used to ensure that concerns about the constitutionality of discrete statutory provisions do not require a veto of the entire legislation.”

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First of all, thank you KT for this post.
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Second of all, can anybody tell the difference between the Bush Presidency’s view of signing statements and Obama’s, other than that Obama pledges to employ them in “moderation”?
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When Obama says “there [i]s a role for the practice if used appropriately“, what precisely differentiates that statement from when the Bush Administration “defended its use of signing statements as lawful and appropriate“?
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Is there any difference, other than that we like one guy, but didn’t like the other? Aren’t they both saying “I have the power to do this, but trust me…I’ll only do it in “appropriate” circumstances“?
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Obviously we’ll have to see whether the scope or frequency of Obama’s signing statements match Bush’s egregious practice, and, as the article points out, Obama has consistently said prior to election that he would be restrained in the use of this supposed power. But isn’t this yet another instance of the Executive overstepping its bounds, the legislature not fulfilling its duties to write at least minimally constitutionally sound law, and the judiciary being circumvented in the process of determining constitutional muster?
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BTW, I’d really appreciate more in the way of commentary response than “But Obama is great! He’s our guy! He’d never do anything wrong! I trust him, and so does every other person I like.“, “Why do you hate Obama? Why do you want Obama to fail?” and “He hasn’t actually issued a signing statement you don’t like, so what’s your problem? Why overreact to something that you don’t know is going to happen?“, all of which are either partisan or miss the point. If there’s a constitutional argument to be had justifying this position, I’d love to hear it.
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Thanks in advance, folks.

53_3
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Here you go
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http://smoothlikeremy.blogspot.com/2009/03/shumer-dropping-knowledge.html
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Shameless self promotion lol.

The President is sworn first and foremost to uphold the Constitution. If he has a concern about the Constitutionality of a statute then he has an affirmative duty to make note of it.
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PD, Bush took the exact same oath, and “upheld the Constitution” under his own interpretation of its provisions. His signing statements in which he said he would ignore the provisions of laws passed by Congress based on his interpretation of the Constitution were an abuse of power — and Obama is claiming the same power.
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the power to uphold the constitution is not the same as the unilateral power to interpret the constitution — i.e. its not “to uphold the Constitution as he sees fit.” When Congress passes laws, it does so with a presumption of their Constitutionality — and insofar as Congresses’ judgment is collective, and laws are passed by two separate and distinct houses, absent Court intervention the collective judgment of Congress should prevail.
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If Presidents — doesn’t matter who it is or what party they are from — don’t think a provision of the law passes constitutional muster, he should take that law to court for review — and request an injunction allowing him to ignore the questionable provisions pending resolution of the dispute.
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pluk, I’m willing to wait and see what kind of signing statements he writes rather than dismissing them out of hand as the same as Bush, who did more than all the other Presidents combined.
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Ivy, Obama’s statement makes it clear that he intends to use signing statements to void provisions of statutory law that he doesn’t think pass constitutional muster. That’s an declaration of intent to abuse the power of the Presidency.
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(It should be noted that “signing statements” are not all bad — in many instances, signing statements are used to signal how a president want a law interpreted when there are ambiguities in the law. What I’m objecting to is signing statements that are used to ignore the law based on a President’s interpretation of the Constitution.)

SZ
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In theory I would opine that Bush wasn’t as much concerned, at least to my knowledge about the constitutionality of a part of a bill that he issued a signing statement on but rather whether or not HE agreed with the position. I might have missed it but I never recall him pointing to the constitutionality of a provision as being why he issued a signing statement. In theory it appears that President Obama is willing to confine his signing statements to only those times where there is a question of constitutionality. Now it remains to be seen of course if this happens in practice however precisely because he has taken this very narrow view and because he published his own reasoning behind the use of signing statements, should he overstep his bounds and or issue a signing statement based on anything other than constitutional bounds he opens himself up for a ton of criticism. Again that doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t still do it, but thats my reading of the difference of the situation.

Is there any difference, other than that we like one guy, but didn’t like the other?
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No difference at all.
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This has been another in a series of obvious answers to simple questions.
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I say this as someone who trusts Obama and believes that he will act appropriately, but “trust” and “belief” are very subjective things. Grown-ups can admit that they’re being subjective (thought not always in this space).

“thought” should be “though” – does Mozilla have a grammar widget?

Seriously though, Obama is doing a great job of restoring integrity into government with these things. His approach to scientific integrity and the role of politics is also commendable.
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53_3: I’m going to have to disagree with you. Not only based on the points s_z brought up above, but on the issues Greenwald has been highlighting:
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http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/07/al_marri/index.html
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http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/06/anonymity/index.html
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He’s doing good on a lot of things, but I’m becoming extremely skeptical that he’ll restore the Presidency to its proper place.

spob’s theory of the Presidency, if he or she thinks a law is unconstitutional it is….. court or no court. Me thinks spob has monarchy and Democracy confused. Of course Hitler and every two bit dictator practiced leadership the same way spob advocates, so maybe he just believes there is only one way… his way. How refreshing… sounds like a Republican to me.

Cliff, you’d have to be superhuman to give that kind of power up. I wouldn’t. Would you?

My earlier post should be taken out and shot. Let me try again.
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Cliff, Obama is as easily tempted by extreme power as any other mortal. I wouldn’t give up that kind of power if I had it. Would you?

In theory I would opine that Bush wasn’t as much concerned, at least to my knowledge about the constitutionality of a part of a bill that he issued a signing statement on but rather whether or not HE agreed with the position. I might have missed it but I never recall him pointing to the constitutionality of a provision as being why he issued a signing statement
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then you weren’t paying attention. Bush “interpreted” the constitution as giving the President virtually unlimited power when “national security” (as he interpreted it) was at stake — and it was based on these powers that the most egregious violations of laws were ignored. (What the heck do you think the whole “telecom immunity” controversy was about?!?!)

Friar Tuck: I tend to agree with you on this one. The difference may be entirely subjective. Believing that Bush had a purely personal agenda regarding signing statements and thinking Obama may be using a constitutional basis about signing statements does make a difference. The constitutional argument may be overblown. The makeup of the Supreme Court at any given time has a bearing on what is determined to be constitutional and what is not.

FT – you are absolutely correct. I like to think that I would, but I know there’s a good chance I would change my mind if I ever got in that position.
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But I can still advocate that Obama does give those powers up, and I can still ask for his supporters to be honest and admit that so far this is a blemish on his Presidency.

Gee, I was hoping K-Tum would address sfbear’s question, rather than Question Hilary’s spob’s. It’s a legitimate question, respectfully put.

Yeah, the earmark debate is grossly out of hand.
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It’s mendacious and stupid but look who’s catapulting and regurgitating the anti-earmark talking points. They haven’t been anything much but mendacious and stupid for years.

stuart, those are all valid questions. I’d actually love to hear what Obama has to say about this. He must have some kind of constitutional justification that accounts for separation of powers. Not being a lawyer I have no idea what that justification could be, or if it’s convincing.

“Is there any difference, other than that we like one guy, but didn’t like the other?”
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Yes, the other guy was a sociopath with a megalomaniac for his right hand.

Cliff
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I am not a civil libertarian but I am against torture and I am against our country not living up to our international treaties. Having said that I believe there are certain things that President Obama may need to do in the future that Glenn Greenwald and a lot of other civil libertarians don’t agree with. In my opinion if we have prisoners that are truly taken from the field of battle then granting them habeus corpus probably isn’t a viable option. My reasoning on this is because in a field of battle soldiers are not acting as policemen when they hunt down terrorists. They aren’t trained that way and in my estimation it would be crazy to try to train them that way. They don’t have to get search warrants and make every thing legal but at the same time that doesn’t mean that their prisoners aren’t guilty as hell. But in a court of law in this country the case would thrown out in a heartbeat. Guilty people get off everyday in our court system and thats justified because as the saying goes its better to have 100 guilty people go free than have one innocent man go to jail. (As an aside it doesn’t work out that way for minorities a lot of the time but I digress) But if we are really dealing with terrorists I don’t believe that tenet should apply. Now do we need to come up with a system to deal with them? I say yes, absolutely. But the problem is everything that has already happened has pretty much already been corrupted. Now I don’t know that President Obama will eventually come up with a better system or if he will revert to Bush’s policies but what I do know is that while many of the detainees in GITMO are innocent there is also a substantial number that aren’t. It is definitely a slippery slope but I for one want the President to have some ability to prosecute the war that doesn’t involve necessarily having to bring these people to trial in a US federal court system. Maybe that hurts my progressive creds but I am a realist first. There really are people who want to do us harm out there and unfortunately many of them arent members of conventional armies of conventional nations and because of this there is some no man’s land out there on how to deal with them. If it doesn’t involve taking rights away from citizens of this country, or torturing a detainee and it truly involves enemies literally on the battlefield then I am not all that pressed about the issues Glenzilla points out.

“Is there any difference, other than that we like one guy, but didn’t like the other?”
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Only a bit more seriously, bringing in the Attorney General as an authority, changes the dynamic completely.

pluk
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You misunderstand what I am saying. President Bush felt like he was omnipotent because the constitution said so and therefore he could use signing statement to get rid of stuff that HE didn’t want. What I am saying is President Obama on the other hand is focusing hypothetically on an actual provision in a bill and whether IT is unconstitutional. At least that is what he said he is going to do. To me that is a fundamental difference.

KT, not sure that Savage’s article shows that Bush abused signing statements. Any alleged abuse comes not from the signing statement, but only if the position staked out in the signing statement turns out to have been unlawful and unreasonably so.

In any event, “abused” is what Barack Obama did to the campaign finance laws by disabling anti-fraud protections with respect to credit card online donations. One wonders how much overseas money came into his campaign that way. “Abused” does not apply to an aggressive position taken in a statement accompanying the signing of a bill into law.

By the way, the ABA’s position was exposed as a joke.

”Where you have a president who is willing to declare vast quantities of the legislation that is passed during his term unconstitutional, it implies that he also thinks a very significant amount of the other laws that were already on the books before he became president are also unconstitutional,” Golove said.
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Defying Supreme Court
Bush has also challenged statutes in which Congress gave certain executive branch officials the power to act independently of the president. The Supreme Court has repeatedly endorsed the power of Congress to make such arrangements. For example, the court has upheld laws creating special prosecutors free of Justice Department oversight and insulating the board of the Federal Trade Commission from political interference.
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Nonetheless, Bush has said in his signing statements that the Constitution lets him control any executive official, no matter what a statute passed by Congress might say.
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In November 2002, for example, Congress, seeking to generate independent statistics about student performance, passed a law setting up an educational research institute to conduct studies and publish reports ”without the approval” of the Secretary of Education. Bush, however, decreed that the institute’s director would be ”subject to the supervision and direction of the secretary of education.”
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Similarly, the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld affirmative-action programs, as long as they do not include quotas. Most recently, in 2003, the court upheld a race-conscious university admissions program over the strong objections of Bush, who argued that such programs should be struck down as unconstitutional.
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Yet despite the court’s rulings, Bush has taken exception at least nine times to provisions that seek to ensure that minorities are represented among recipients of government jobs, contracts, and grants. Each time, he singled out the provisions, declaring that he would construe them ”in a manner consistent with” the Constitution’s guarantee of ”equal protection” to all — which some legal scholars say amounts to an argument that the affirmative-action provisions represent reverse discrimination against whites.
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Golove said that to the extent Bush is interpreting the Constitution in defiance of the Supreme Court’s precedents, he threatens to ”overturn the existing structures of constitutional law.”
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A president who ignores the court, backed by a Congress that is unwilling to challenge him, Golove said, can make the Constitution simply ”disappear.”

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Thats what I call some Ike Turner level of abuse of signing statements!

“In any event, “abused” is what Barack Obama did to the campaign finance laws by disabling anti-fraud protections with respect to credit card online donations.”
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Bullsh*t: “Election lawyer Brett Kappel said the FEC has never grappled with the question of cash cards. “The whole system is set up for them to accept the payment, then determine whether it is legal or not. And if it’s not, send it back. That’s what the statute requires,” he said.”
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If you had any, your credibility is now…gone.

Hey shepherd. Guess what, genius, if you disable the anti-fraud protections, then they couldn’t determine where or who the money was coming from. Dude, even WaPo caught onto that:

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=310259207775310

Note the quote of WaPo in this editorial.

Now who’s credibility is shot?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Investor’s Business Daily BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA What a maroon!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA What’s next World Net Daily? BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I need some oxygen. WOOOOOOOO

By the way, the ABA’s position was exposed as a joke.
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Prove it.

In other news, Mikey Steele is still an idiot.
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http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/03/new_steele_setback_rnc_doc_on_web_redesign_draws_r.php?ref=fp1

“Is there any difference, other than that we like one guy, but didn’t like the other?”
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Yes.
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Obama’s memorandum has set out criteria for the use of a signing statement regarding constitutionality that are significantly more than anything Bush ever offered. He commits the executive to identifying concerns regarding constitutionality early and often. he commits to presuming the constitutionality of a statute and to “strive to avoid” a construction that results in unconstitutionality, and to act with “caution and restraint” based on “well-founded” interpretations of the Constitution. He commits to identifying his concerns with clarity and specificity. Finally, he commits to only raising the issue if the interpretation of the statute that results in unconstitutionality is a “legitimate” construction.
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All of that is far more than Bush ever offered. His signing statements were all based on his wacky “unitary executive” theory, were issued without caution and restraint, and he never hesitated to use them.
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Bottom line: you don’t have to swear “In Obama We Trust” to like this and you can measure his compliance with this initiative, and it is a significant improvement over Bush.

Must be Be Kind to Trolls Day.

sg – you throw a lot of caveats in there that I don’t think anyone would disagree with.
But what Greenwald describes are abuses that go far beyond what you’ve described, and have been carried over uninterrupted from the Bush administration.

“Note the quote of WaPo in this editorial.
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The quote is in the article I linked (note to self: don’t waste good links on Republicons). It talks about pre-screening not reverse-transactions on charges that can’t be validating. Actually, I’m not sure I can put this into language you can understand (and I’m usually pretty good at that). Anyone?
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“Now who’s credibility is shot?”
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No discernible change, as far as I’m concerned.

STFU, sgwhite, youre the DB that thinks that white high school students should be beaten into unconsciousness on account of race. And genius, it has a quote from WaPo’s news reporting, which I specifically mentioned in my post. I know it’s hard, but learn to read. You really are a pathetic twit aren’t you.

Cliff, ever wonder why the ABA’s report has been blown off since it came out. It’s a joke, kinda like Anna Diggs Taylor’s opinion on Bush’s surveillance policy.

shepherd, once you get the money in, if you cannot figure out it’s bad, then you don’t have to give it back–how hard is this?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA sponge bob’s mad BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA this idiot quotes malkin and ibd and he thinks that makes him credible BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA we are just waiting on you to post a Glenn Beck youtube to help your argument BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA better yet how about some comments on freeper to help your credibility BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA What do you think this is, RedState? BWAHAHAHAHAHA (laughing and pointing)

Cliff, ever wonder why the ABA’s report has been blown off since it came out. It’s a joke, kinda like Anna Diggs Taylor’s opinion on Bush’s surveillance policy.
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That’s not proof.

Cliff
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Today’s Glenzilla wasn’t so bad but he has been “dissappointed” about some of the other decisions by the DOJ under Obama so far. Its quotes like this one in his update that drive me crazy about him even though I respect his position.
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UPDATE: Anonymous Liberal, a lawyer who worked pro bono on the Al-Marri case (on the right side), says that while he, too, is disappointed in the lack of an ultimate adjudication here, he’s “fairly confident that Obama’s OLC reached the conclusion (and memorialized it in an official opinion) that the President did not have the power to detain al-Marri militarily.”
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I really would like to know the basis for that confidence. If, as A.L. claims, the Obama OLC reached the conclusion that Obama lacks the power which was asserted in this case, then why don’t they so say publicly? As Armando notes, Obama’s OLC appointees were particularly critical of the secrecy of the Bush OLC (recall all the complaints about “secret law”). If, as A.L. asserts, the Obama OLC issued a formal opinion rejecting the President’s constitutional authority to detain legal residents (and, presumably, U.S. citizens) with no charges, then why didn’t they tell that to the Supreme Court (e.g., “we renounce the prior administration’s arguments because we believe the Constitution prohibits Al-Marri’s detention under these circumstances”)?

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Glenn basically challenges the assertations of a guy who was actually working on al Marri’s case. Thats when I think he goes to far and wants everything to be done HIS way or he is dissappoitned. Like I said I respect him and most days I am a fan, but I do think he takes it too far sometimes.

sgwhite, funny how you descend into ad hominem, but that’s not surprising, given that you think that white high school students should be knocked unconscious (and by the way, all those who cheerlead this guy–could be your kid that sgwhite thinks should be beaten senseless)–but hey, your guy thinks that a six-on-one stomping of an unconscious student was a “schoolyard fight”. And that’s a quote from the saint himself. Defend that twits.

Yeah, I quote Malkin. So what? She’s right about Rangel. Is she not?

Cliff, that’s not something that’s susceptible to proof. Just read the ABA’s report. The thing’s half-baked. No one takes it seriously.

sg – yeah, Greenwald gets strident, and I don’t think there’s ever any pleasing him. That’s part of why I like him.
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As for that particular challenge, I think he’s saying AL just spits that out there without any proof. I’ll have to check his links when I get home.
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But even when Greenwald does go to far, I feel that he’s offered plenty of substantive reasons to be critical of Obama.

sgwhite, funny how you descend into ad hominem
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Says the anonymous little droid who posted
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“youre the DB that thinks that white high school students should be beaten into unconsciousness on account of race”
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Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.
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By the way, spooge, why do you hate America?

This:
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ever wonder why the ABA’s report has been blown off since it came out
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I have no evidence that it’s been blown off. I have no evidence that the ABA is anything other than a credible institution.

hellslittlestangel:

Your itty-bitty wings and lil’ red tail are cute as hell.

Thanks for the mention — maybe my question was a little too “meta”. . . ?

I guess no answer is forthcoming from KT, but please tell me it’s not just me.

I find myself reading JK’s recent rip-snorting criticisms of the “Bush the Lesser” and say to myself, “where was this guy two years ago?” Nothing has changed but the occupant of the Oval Office! I remember a Joke Line who seemed very timid to criticize the W administration for _anything_ (maybe someone can refer me to a vintage ’07 post where Joe gives it to ‘em good, but I’m drawing a blank.)

While reversion to sanity is always to be praised, I can’t get behind John Cole’s and Andrew Sullivan’s recent recognition that Joe has returned to the fold until I know WHY.

Is it some new realization? The fact that the house of cards we’ve lived in the last several years has been revealed to be just that by virtue of our Very Own Great Depression? A recognition that the mainstream press is quickly going the way of the Dodo, and a desire to go out on a high note? Repositioning the mag as a “progrssive” publication (now, that is change in which I _can’t_ believe).

I’m a sarcastic MF, and I’ve made no secret of my disdain for the hackery that appears here from time to time, but my question is sincere, and I think it’s important.

From the very first post on this blog, pooh-poohing the USAG office scandals, to a post like the one above, is quite a remarkable journey.

I’ll buy drinks for the first Swampland staffer who explains to us how full-throated criticism of Bush finally became “suitable” material for this blog. . . .

OT, more Michael Steele troubles, getting weirder all the time…
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/09/joe-the-plumber-slams-ste_n_173214.html

Not to sound like an Obama apologist, but I always thought the issue with signing statements was not the mere fact of them (many presidents used them before Bush), but rather — and this is a judgment call — the fact that Bush abused their purpose.
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Put it this way: The problem with Bush was less about signing statements per se, and more about the fact that Bush viewed any limitations on his power as unconstitutional. (And now we have the memos to prove it.) So he slapped signing statements willy-nilly on whatever he didn’t like.
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Sometimes these things really are about judgment and hoping the people in office have some.

No time this morning, but I loved this Stu:
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BTW, I’d really appreciate more in the way of commentary response than “But Obama is great! He’s our guy! He’d never do anything wrong! I trust him, and so does every other person I like.”, “Why do you hate Obama? Why do you want Obama to fail?” and “He hasn’t actually issued a signing statement you don’t like, so what’s your problem? Why overreact to something that you don’t know is going to happen?”, all of which are either partisan or miss the point.

sfbear: Proust wrote that originality in politics is repeating whatever cliche is fashionable at the time. When the fashion changes, the same cliche becomes “unoriginal.”
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I think we’re just seeing a shift in the CW. Not that it isn’t welcome.

Art Pepper: Maybe I should have offered a Madeleine, instead of the drinks. . . ?

Nioe to be fashionable again, I guess, but hardlty confidence-boosting. . . .

Art Pepper: Maybe I should have offered a Madeleine, instead of the drinks. . . ?

Nioe to be fashionable again, I guess, but hardly confidence-boosting. . . .

“shepherd, once you get the money in, if you cannot figure out it’s bad, then you don’t have to give it back–how hard is this?”
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This hard: what percentage of Obama’s campaign money came from unqualified sources? If you can’t answer that, you’re just another poo-flinging Republicon, self-censoring your news and regurgitating speck-sized anti-Democratic charges while ignoring the beam in your own eye – you know, like the one who actually lost the national vote by half a million and took the White House through a “conservative” judicial coup and then went on to rig the Justice Department with Republicon partisans to steal elections for other Republicons.
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Complained about any of that? Then STFU. Obama didn’t break election law, he raised more money through qualified small donations from more Americans than anyone before him and he did it with more transparency than anyone before him.
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Apologies, all around, for the hijacking.

All right, sg, I read Anonymous Liberal’s post, and there are a lot of unsupported assertions in there:
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Though we haven’t seen the internal opinions, I’m fairly confident that Obama’s OLC reached the conclusion (and memorialized it in an official opinion) that the President did not have the power to detain al-Marri militarily
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And, as stated before, Obama’s OLC has likely already issued internal opinions that more or less comport with the position of al-Marri’s attorneys
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AL did have a point, which I don’t think Greenwald noted, that the current Supreme Court is a conservative one and bringing a case before them at this point would risk setting an unfavorable precedent.

Weird, Word Press ate my post.
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sg – I read Anonymous Liberal’s post, and he does make some assertions:
And, as stated before, Obama’s OLC has likely already issued internal opinions that more or less comport with the position of al-Marri’s attorneys
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that aren’t accompanied by any proof, and I think that’s what Greenwald was complaining about.
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But he also makes a point I didn’t see Greenwald acknowledge: the current SCOTUS is conservative, and to bring a case like this before them would risk getting an unfavorable result.

Great, now I look stupid. Thanks, Word Press.

I like to see the pro-Bush postings everytime anything concerns Obama trying to clean up the rethug mess. In this instance, it has long been noted that Bush flunkies drafted signing statements to ignore the intent of laws passed by Congress. Obama is rolling back on that practice, yet the Bush apologists come swinging off the rafters with some nebulous charges that Obama is somehow engaging in some devious maneuveres. It is sad, but at the same time fun to watch. For all you Bushies out there, I don’t think Bush is evil. He doesn’t need to be. He has gangs of evil people, including you, to serve that purpose.

Karen Tumulty predictably asserts: “‘signing statements,’ a practice that was abused by George W. Bush as a means of overriding the will of Congress.”

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Translation: George W. Bush’s signing statments were incompatible with the objectives of the anti-American community. BTW, Charlie Savage is a kook conspiracy theorist and thus a darling of said anti-American community and its Pulitzer Prize media arm.

the anti-American community
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By this, of course, you must mean a large majority of Americans.

textee, yes, of course, Bush had no ulterior motives in attaching “ignore the will of the poeple” signing statements to bills passed by Congress. Bush is a good christian man. Let’s not even go into the massive murder and destruction in Iraq in the name of Liberty. Let us praise God, and not be diverted to these UnGodly matters of women’s choice to control their bodies, or of advancing human life by destroying these embroys which we will flush down the toilet in any event. Praise your efforts in the name of humanity. This prelude to the atrocities of the Bush administration is the vastly abbreviated version. There are not sufficient electrons for the full text.

Monday was a great day for the country. Not only taming signing statements and approving federal funding for stem cells, but affirming in general the value of science. KO said last night “remember science?” and I realized I’d held my breath for 8 years over anything that was important to me scientifically. Who knows if the planet can recover from the last eight years of intentional neglect, but at least we’ve got a shot. I noticed Obama said we were going to follow science even when it wasn’t “convenient.” Hat tip to Gore. Kudos to Arlen Specter, also, who inserted $ 1billion for the INH into the stimulus bill.

Here here Kathy! Now if only we could get the media to institute a requirement that information for distribution contain only evidence-based or reality-based comments.

@ kathy and Dee: As long as science makes ridiculous claims like people and dinosaurs didn’t exist at the same time, mankind is making global warming worse or that the earth is over 7,000 years old…the RW will never support science. As for the media, if they would only distribute information that is reality or evidence based, they would have to institute a self-imposed ban on quoting RW sources. I’m not going to hold my breath since I do enjoy breathing.

[...] Here is Obama’s position on signing statements: Obama on Signing Statements :: Swampland – TIME.com If any subject ranked amongst the top 10 of not 5 ires of the Bush Presidency, this is one of [...]

This pretty much says it all:

http://www.redstate.com/brian_d/2009/03/12/the-audacity-of-signing-statements/