A recent diary by David Swanson asserts, in part, that President Obama as a candidate said of signing statements that "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."
Mr. Swanson then says "Obama now does this routinely."
But it is historically, legally, and politically wrong to equate President Obama's use of signing statements with President Bush's, or to suggest that President Obama is doing what he pledged not to do. Any historical or legal scholar can easily point out how wrong Mr. Swanson is.
..a history of Obama's generally correct use of signing statements at link.
[T]he use, nature and frequency of [President Bush's] signing statements demonstrates a "radically expansive view" of executive power which "amounts to a claim that he is impervious to the laws that Congress enacts" and represents a serious assault on the Constitutional system of checks and balances. ( Bush abuseed signing statements, using them in place of vetos - which is unconstitutional)
In Bill O'Reilly's Sights
Last week I was greeted with an uncomfortable curiosity: a brace of hate mail in my inbox, received within a 20-minute span. The first came at 7:26: "You are an uneducated writer! You need to get your fact straight! You are a liberal bastard! You need to get informed!" All arguable propositions, perhaps, but that still left the question: why was this person realizing that precisely now, and why, two minutes later, did "Dr. Anthony" feel moved to inform me, "I've noticed a trend that left-wing extremists tend to be exceedingly ugly & perverse. Living with that ugliness & deviance seems to lead to an aberration of thought as well. I am attempting to formulate the correlation..."
And then, while he did, as if on a schedule, another deluge hit some three hours later, the messages several notches more frightening:
"Your a piece of s---. we will hunt you left wing libs down one by one. you lieing piece of trash."
"So perlstein,whats your problem with Fox and conservatives. you jews should be dancing on the ceilings.you have control of the government,obama,congress, senate...."
"You sir are far more dangerous than Sarah Palin ever will be."
Another Conservative Hypocrite Hoist On His Own Petard-- Paul Stanley (R-TN)
I have a feeling all DWT readers will know the punch line of this tale before they read another 15 words. Tennessee state Senator Paul Stanley was the driving force behind his state's anti-gay adoption legislation. No, he wasn't caught in a toilet trying to seduce an undercover cop. The ultra-conservative freak was having an affair with a young woman who was working as a legislative intern. What the hell is wrong with these Republican hypocrites? They're such a cliche at this point that it's becoming painful to write about them! The woman, McKensie Morrison, is 23 years old.
