A What?
I have to admit, I've never heard of a presidential "signing statement."
I mean, sure, when a president signs a bill into law, he's free to make any statement he likes — I am proud to sign this bill, or I am signing this bill even though I object to parts of it. Whatever — it's just a sound byte. But once he signs the bill, it's the law, and even the president has to obey it, right?
When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.
After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a "signing statement" — an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law — declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said.
Excuse me? Where in the constitution or any of its amendments is this "official document" provided for?
You guessed it — Nowhere. The signing statement just sort of materialized gradually, like a wart on the body politic. It dates back to the presidencies of James Monroe and Andrew Jackson, but wasn't used with any regularity until modern times, beginning with (surprise!) the Reagan administration:
It has been used deftly by Presidents Reagan through the current Bush administration to gain advantages lost in the legislative process or to work out losses in the process of veto bargaining.
Essentially, a signing statement is a way for a president to have his cake and eat it too. It lets him sign a bill that he opposes but that is politically advantageous for him to sign, while at the same time, he reserves the right to ignore any portion of the bill that he claims infringes upon his constitutional prerogatives as president.
So in spite of all the hoopla just before Christmas about Bush and John McCain finally coming to terms on the McCain "ban on torture" amendment, the president apparently had his fingers crossed behind his back while he was shaking McCain's hand.
According to the Boston Globe:
Elisa Massimino, Washington director for Human Rights Watch, called Bush's signing statement an "in-your-face affront" to both McCain and to Congress.
"The basic civics lesson that there are three co-equal branches of government that provide checks and balances on each other is being fundamentally rejected by this executive branch," she said.
"Congress is trying to flex its muscle to provide those checks [on detainee abuse], and it's being told through the signing statement that it's impotent. It's quite a radical view."
Thank you very much, but Congress is more than capable of demonstrating its impotence all by itself.
