Comments on: Obama Issues First Signing Statement

By: kranky kritter

kranky kritter — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:53:05 +0000

I’ve never been troubled by signing statements as a matter of any sort of abstract principle. In fact, they make a lot of sense to me. Presidents routinely sign bills that are pages and pages long, and these obviously must include things that are poorly written and fail to indicate their precise meaning.

So it makes perfect sense to me that a President would accompany his signature with a statement that describes what it is that he believes he is agreeing to, in good faith.

And that’s what it boils down to, good faith. A President’s signing statement needs to be in good faith and not be a blatant end around that turns clear meaning on its head. These things shouldn’t say “on p 57, section 3, subpara 5, I interpret black to mean white.” But if they say “I interpret this clause to proscribe activities a, b, and c, but not to address activities such as d and e, then I am 100% fine with that.

Fact is, progressives operated on the working hypothesis that the majority of GWB’s actions were in bad faith, and that his signing statements were undertaken primarily to subvert congressional intent. Since popular politics thrives on oversimplification, progressive objections were dumbed down to rote opposition to signing statements.

Fact is, they make sense.

By: Stones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Things Heard: e58v4

Stones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Things Heard: e58v4 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:19:13 +0000

[...] Mr Obama spoke critically of Mr Bush’s use of signing statements calling them an abuse of power … waits less than 2 months to follow suit. [...]

By: TerenceC

TerenceC — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:16:02 +0000

The whole bill was held over from last year – yesterday was the very last day of financing for the Federal government. If it hadn’t been signed the government would have actually shut down today. Most of the provisions in that bill were cobbled together in mid to late 2008 and the voting was postponed month after month until the new administration was elected, seated, and sworn in. This is not an Obama spending bill, this isn’t even a spending bill from the current congress – it was all a hold over. So give it a rest and give the new administration some slack when it comes to cleaning up the last 8 years of brutal incompetence. If this crap is still going on a year from now i will be as vocal as anyone – but right now is just too early.

By: shane

shane — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:42:43 +0000

Alan, after reading your post, my first thought was….’change’. But, perhaps maybe we should file this the the ‘yes we can’ column. “Can we use signing statements even though we won an election deriding them? – Yes we can.”

thanks for keeping your eyes open.