Knight Ridder newspapers first reported in January (and it was noted on this blog) about how President Bush has quietly been using “signing statements” to attach his own interpretation of legislation and signal whether he wants agencies to implement new laws. But he may be using the practice even more than originally reported.
The Boston Globe reported this week that Bush has issued more than 750 such statements — 250 more than reported in January. And that earlier total was already twice as many as the combined number of statements that President Clinton and former President Bush issued.
“Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ‘whistle-blower’ protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research,” the Globe reported.
The Globe also noted: “Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Instead, he has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation’s sponsors to signing ceremonies at which he lavishes praise upon their work.
“Then, after the media and the lawmakers have left the White House, Bush quietly files ’signing statements’ — official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law. The statements are recorded in the federal register.”
There is a lot of worry about activist judges not following the rule of law and the clear intentions of the legislative branch, but the bigger abuser may be an activist president.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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83 Comments
Yeah Phillip, he’s declared himself the king of all branches like Howard Stern is the king of all media.
How can our loss of freedom be attributed to an “activist” president? Every word that falls out of his mouth is declassified, he is above every law, and just to make sure, he does this little signing statement dance.
And in case that isnt enough, he will get pat “bush’s sentator” roberts to pass a law making it legal after the fact.
And if that isnt enough overkill, he wants to control the judicial branch of government too. He not only has the power of appointment, but he wants to do a little swift boating on judges who might not be true believers of the glorius bush revolution.
Is “activist judge” a new swift boat catch phrase?
He’s not activist, he just has all his bases covered for his little dictatorship.
“The wuz who would be King.”
Heheh. Signing statement dance. Like his poll dance caption on CNN. I saw another caption that said “bush slides down the poll”.
And thanks for mentioning that this was posted on an earlier thread. I really hope you will be at the meetup. We can give you more thread ideas… :)
Glorious Bush revolution=Thousand Year Reich?
worst. president. ever.
Need some proof?
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usbush024725914may02,0,4195593.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-print
I don’t think it take a thousand years, once the trapdoor opens, to hit the end of the rope.
“And thanks for mentioning that this was posted on an earlier thread.”
I thought this looked awfully familiar.
There’s a golden opportunity before the Democrats, one I’m confident they’ll blow.
A coherent plan for America right now would spell both houses of Congress and make impeachment of this criminal in the White House a virtual certainty.
But they’ll blow it. They always do.
What “plan” is that?
The “Signing Statement ” is a bad idea. Just send it back with the “signing language” and have that added to the Bill. If congress won’t add it, too bad it doesn’t become a part of the Bill.
Why have a congress if Bush is going to just write law?
Now channelling Hank Price…now channelling Hank Price…come in Hank Price…
“Nothing to see here.”
And you know why Dem’s will blow it, Jungle Jim? Because you all have one and only one thing on your mind. Bush-bashing. You tore off your “Hate is not a family value” bumper sticker, took off the ‘gloves’ and are spending more time being against something that you don’t have the energy to be FOR anything. No matter what Bush does, good or bad, you are against. Normally, I wouldn’t give a rip what libs think, except the playing field changed since 9/11, and having a no-plan no-guts no-leadership liberal infested congress and presidency would play right into the terrorists hands. Somehow, I don’t think the terrorists are afraid of weak-kneed weak-minded no-value liberals. Remember, they hate the west because they think we are immoral and weak. After eight years of Clinton, I can understand where they are coming from.
Given the choice of a President that takes action or one that makes idle threats, calls for a number of non-binding resolutions from a spineless UN and bombs baby forumula factories, I choose the former. Even if there are bumps along the way, at least I know that my family will be safer under a conservative platform than a liberal platform.
ID,
Well, that’s a grand theology. Sounds really impressive, with lots of decisive manly GOP men versus weak-kneed Democrats. I’m sure it makes you feel very secure.
Just one thing: if the reason you support Bush is that he’s different from the Democrats, how is that any less reactive–or better than–than knee-jerk Bush bashing?
ID
What is it that you are so “for?”
Bush and his Zionists have one thing in common. You don’t need to “bash” them, just tell what they do.
Gravity handles the rest.
I saw a “yellow” sticker. The guy had repainted it yellow and wrote “YARK WORK $5 “
He spells as bad as I do.
ID, I hope you paid plenty for that ticket because you’re way out in left field.
If you call “taking action” trampling on the Constitution and lying pathologically to Americans, then you are so far gone ideologically that you deserve no more or mine – or any other sane person’s – attention.
What a joke your last post was.
LOL ID.
Your argument is silly if not downright anti-American: by your standard “action” trumps the US constitution.
Hell, who needs a president? By your standard we need Duke Nukem, not an elected executive with powers limited by checks and balances. Your improvement, apparently, would be to rig up Duke so that he can only be a Republican.
Yeah, that’ll work: e.g., GW Bush.
PS- Who the hell cares if Islamofascists think Americans are “immoral and weak?” Their standards of morality are ca900 and they’re apparently poorly equipped to judge strength, so who cares?
Those of you on the left, get your outcry ready.
1. Like it or not, the President is head of the executive branch. As such, he has authority to make regulations specifying how the executive branch will carry out laws passed.
2. ALL presidents (through the executive agencies) interpret laws every time an executive agency acts. Executive agencies generally have some latitude (sometimes wide latitude) in the execution of Congressional statutes. In fact, the courts generally give deference to an agency’s interpretation of a statute unless that interpretation runs afoul of the clear language of the statute.So while using “signing statements” to express an interpretion or application of a new law is unusual (and odd – I wonder why he uses such a mechanism, rather than simply doing so by executive order?), it is not unknown, nor is the outcome all that unusual (and I have strong doubts that the “ignore laws” language used by Knight-Ridder is entirely accurate – “apply and interpret” is probably more accurate, though I’ve certainly not read many of these signing statements).
A similar example applies in my field. Though the legislature passes laws, prosecutors have almost unlimited discretion in deciding which cases they will prosecute and which they will not. Some laws are quietly ignored. Others are rigidly enforced. That is in effect a policy decision, made by an executive agency.
3. The real question is whether the executive branch’s application and interpretation of the statute in applying the signing statement is afoul of the intent of Congress as expressed in the language of that statute. And ultimately, that is a decision the courts will make, as cases come before it.
Howl away.
hehe, Duke Nukem. Those games sucked.
Interesting piece. It reminds me of one I read substituting the words, “executive order” for “sigining statements” when Clinton brought us a new era of “ruling by executive order” in his own words. The most famous of which he gave governmental agencies the right to “write laws.” Anyone want to venture a guess as to the number of federal laws now on the books, that our lawmakers had nothing to do with?If democrats want a change, stop whining and field a candidate that can win. If you keep presenting the same candidates that drove the party into the ground, get used to it. The democratic leadership is the only thing republicans have going for them.
This goes way beyond micro-managing. This goes to the very heart of the constitution. There is no way our fore-fathers would approve of what this meglamaniac is doing. If this doesn’t get congress off its 0ver-priced duff and bring on impeachment time, nothing will.
The Democratic campaign slogan should be “Had enough yet?”With these damn republicans if it’s not one thing, it’s another.
Why is there no “outrage?” Phillip asks.
Let’s see, Bush finessed the 2000 election to make sure he wins, the will of the majority be damned.
After he lost the popular vote, he made absolutely no effort to appeal to the middle despite running as a “compassionate conservative.”
He has thwarted democracy here and in Iraq.
He trumped up a case to rush us into never ending war in Iraq.
He vowed that tax cuts would help balance the budget and gave us the largest budget deficit and national debt in history. He is still pushing tax cuts.
He ran a stinking filthy dirty campaign against Kerry’s war record because he has no morality other than clinging to power by any means necessary.
We’re not outraged by much of anything that this president can do.
He’s as bad as they come. The worst you can get.
And ID, it’s nice to know who the idiot 32 percent are who still support President Machivelli.
We’ve never has a treasonous president before, or one so disloyal that his loyalty was to another country.
And we’re never had a president who hated America so much that he would attack her constitutional government and try to overthrow it from inside the White House.
Throw in the fact that he’s crazy and stupid all at the same time and what we have is: ” Failure to communicate.”
We need to get rid of him and we sure need to get busy, as Walker says:
“This goes way beyond micro-managing. This goes to the very heart of the constitution. There is no way our fore-fathers would approve of what this megalomaniac is doing. If this doesn’t get congress off its 0ver-priced duff and bring on impeachment time, nothing will.”
“Let’s roll”
BTW, ID–
The left don’t advocate “doing nothing” about terrorism.
What we want to capture Osama bin Laden, remember him? Or how about those anthrax letter murderers who just happen to target Democrats? Hmmm . . .
How about we do something about the people that have proven they pose a threat to this country instead of the citizens of Fallujah who had to die to get taught “a lesson.”
GMC70,
Kudos for having the good sense to offer nothing more than an uncharacteristically, well, flaccid defense of Bush’s unconstitutional power grab.
If, as is the case, Bush Administration officials claim that the President reserves the authority to determine what counts as the ultimate interpretation of the Constitution, then how, GMC70, does this NOT usurp the perogatives of the Supreme Court?
Or, for that matter, by claiming that the position of Commander of Chief enjoys unchecked power over military and defense activities, does this not usurp the power of Congress to declare war?
Your analogy with the prosecutorial prerogative is quite beside the point, since prosecutors don’t say that laws don’t apply to them, or that the stated intent of laws is null in when prosecutors decide it is. The issue is not ‘latidue in deciding how the law is to be applied.’ The issue, rather, is in deciding whether it does and does not apply. No dice on that analogy, GMC70.
You find it ‘odd’ that the Bush Administration would employ such a device. Well, GMC70, let me help you connect the dots: this Administration has gone on the record proposing the theory of the ‘unitary executive,’ which approximates the functioning of a sovereign with unchecked power to decide what is and what is not within its purview. The fact that the signing statements go on out of sight confirms that the architects of the policy want to keep it as far as possible under the radar.
If you didn’t actually read the story in the Globe, GMC70, you may want to do so before passing judgment for or against the policy. And once you do so, ask yourself this: if Clinton had tried any of this, how would the Right have responded?
More to the point, why aren’t the Right responding in that way now? I wonder.
Yeah, TrueBlue, I do remember OBL. I also remember a certain Democratic president who had the perfect opportunity to put him away, but was too busy covering his peter tracks and missed the spot on the dress! How very rich!:) Now OBL is being protected by Islamic extremists in Pakistan, and not being man enough to show his face outside.
Here’s the WeBlog Quiz!
ID: broken record or one-trick pony?
Discuss.
ID=Latin for dodging the question.
Let’s try again with the resident apologist for the Pinochet of the Potomac:
How do you rationalize away Bush’s lack of interest in capturing OBL?
Could it be that America’s first dictator needs OBL to keep all the locksteppers like yourself appropriately afraid?
I await the inevitable laugh that your response will produce.
He can’t find him?
JJ,
Pinochet was a hero and a great man and shrub is a filthy traitor. You should compare shrub with King Ahasuerus as that would be more apt.
Viva La Raza Blanco!!!
Just picture Bush with a mariachi band singing Sinatra en espanol!I think that’s what he threatened us with if we made too much of a public outcry.
Love him or hate him, he still the President of the USA till 2009.
Bush sucks so bad that people literally hate him, more than his political record and ideology, but just hate the person as a human being.
That’s pretty bad.
Bush and Big Government. Just a poor choice for America.
May the radical left and radical right never be elected or selected ever again.
Gee, Spector announces with great fanfare that he will hold hearings about these 750 non-signing statements… IN JULY!!!!
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014728.html
At least it will be before the November elections. Heheh. Wanna bet?
ID take your medication.
kfg,whatdayawannabet hizroyalness pens a “signing-statement” forbidding congress from holding the hearings.
CF
As is often the case, you have argued against what I did not say. Strawman.
1) This president, nor any other, that I know of, has claimed “exclusive” or final authority to determine the meaning of the Constitution. we all know that is a power reserved by precedent, if not specifically by Constitutional language, to the Supreme Court. That has not changed, nor has the president claimed to change same.
2) Neither has this president claimed exclusive authority over the military power. He has claimed, and there is some case support in his favor, that the Congressional authorization to use military force includes all such incidental use of force, including intelligence activities. (No, I’m not going to argue that issue here).He has further claimed that his actions based upon his consitutional power as C-in-C cannot be limited by Congress, a position with a great deal of historical and case support (of course, whether a particular act falls within that constitutional authority is another matter).
Frankly, I think the analogy with prosecutorial discretion is, thought limited, quite appropriate. Perhaps you cannot see past your venal hatred of this administration (who, God knows, I have not been an apologist for) to look at this issue dispassionately.
The “unitary executive” idea did not originate with this administration, and is not without historical support. It simply argues that the president is the head of the executive branch, without Congressional interference. Goes back to the Tenure of Office Act, post Civil War. Has not entirely been accepted by the courts.
I said that I have not read the signing statements, not that I had not read the article. Difference.
There’s plenty to criticize the administration about, and I have. But this is the proverbial molehill. Old news. So what. The executive interprets the application and administration of statute by the executive branch. Clinton DID this. Wow. Yawn.
ID, let’s discuss the “wag the dog” attack on OBL. Keep in mind that there was a Republican Congress during that time, keeping Clinton from doing much of anything about OBL. When he finally did, the Rep outcry was “Wag the Dog!” Sorry, ID, your little trip back in history doesn’t wash.
Or how ’bout this? You give me one thing Bush has done to fight terrorism, and I’ll give you 3-5 (you choose) that Clinton did. I’ll even let you start.
My misstatement:
1) NEITHER this president, nor any other, has claimed . . .
Preview & Edit, dummy! (speaking to myself, of course)
ID,Perhaps Clinton would have had more time to spend on OBL and other Presidential duties if he hadn’t had to spend so much time defending himself from Kenneth Starr and the right-wing witch hunt. For as much time as was wasted on this, surely his time could have been put to better use. Granted, it was poor judgement, but in case you self-rightous puritans (aka republicans) forgot, an affair like what he had is not illegal.Going back to a remark you made earlier, how is a no plan, no guts, no leadership, liberal infested congress any worse than the no plan (how’s that war going), no guts (borders wide open, we’re being overun by illegal immigrants and possible terrorists coming in unchecked), no leadership (where is Tom DeLay? And nice approval rating for the administration and the best congress money can buy) conservative infested congress we now have?
Been a little busy. What’d I miss?
What no Heckler? I see the Rushbot ID bush2000 has weighed in.
GMC is spinning the letter of the law as opposed to the spirit. Stuffy as ususal. I note neither approval nor disapproval in his post. So I guess he should say one way or the other.
Joe? The radical right has had its show. Can we at least TRY the radical left?
And that folks is where I make my point.
This pen wielding potentate should be decried by all. That means you GMC.(I’m not picking on you. Heckler isn’t here and ID won’t pay attention to anything Rush doesn’t say) This is dangerous stuff.We hear the “howls” from the right all the time about “activist judges” But judges can only interpret the law.
President. root word preside. The executive branch is to oversee and enforce the laws not take what the legislative gives him and rewrite it.
I would not want this power for a President Gore any more than for a President bush. But if this goes unanswered “my side” may get our turn. You righties in with that?
JR. We seen the Radical Left. It’s called the Soviet Union.
I rather not try the radical left. I’m sorry. They are the worst of them all.
Wow lots weighed in while I was typing that last and posting on open.
GMC missed my last and again waxed pedantic.Good posts brown and RD.
Joe? Now come on. Howard Dean is hardly Joe Stalin.
Actually, Howard Dean made some sense when he talked about reaching out to guys with guns and Confederate flags. He also talked about ending our policy of deaf, dumb and blind support for israel. at that point he became a liability and the jews media portrayed him as a yahoooooooooo, thus killing his chances for the nomination. I won’t even mention what the jew demorats did to Paul Hackett.
Viva La Raza Blanco!!!
Oh my gosh, Clinton’s PENIS caused 9-11!!!
Just ask ID.
Funny, I thought that 9-11 happened when Bush was in office, after Clinton’s Security Chief Sandy Berger told Condi Rice that “Al Qaeda would be their biggest threat,” the meeting she denies every having . . .
But it’s those damn facts again, facts that as Stephen Colbert said “always have a liberal bias.”
Almost 30 percent of Americans supported Nixon after he resigned. It’s nice to know there’s that no matter how bad the President is, he can always count on the ID’s of the world who are so insecure in their own manhood that they need the illusion of a man to believe in.
GMC70,
Regarding point #1, I again ask, have you even read the article? This is PRECISELY what the President’s folks are claiming. Here’s the passage from the Boston Globe article. Referring to Adminstration officials who refused to go on record and answer questions, the article states
“instead, they referred a Globe reporter to their response to questions about Bush’s position that he could ignore provisions of the Patriot Act. They said at the time that Bush was following a practice that has ”been used for several administrations” and that ”the president will faithfully execute the law in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution.”
But the words ”in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution” are the catch, legal scholars say, because Bush is according himself the ultimate interpretation of the Constitution. And he is quietly exercising that authority to a degree that is unprecedented in US history.”
If you still want to claim that Bush is not claiming the powers he is claiming, you are certainly entitled to your delusion. But don’t try to assert it as if it is factually the case: it isn’t. We’re in whole new Constitutional territory here, GMC70, your studied nonchalance to the contrary.
It becomes redudant to say it again, but your analogy to prosecutorial discretion is a red herring. Do prosecutors claim the right to make or abrogate the law? They do not. Your analogy therefore tanks, just as I said it did. One almost suspects a deliberate misunderstanding here, but, of course, your interior states are not accessible to me, so we will move on.
Finally, ‘venal’ means ‘corrupt’ or ‘bribeable.’ By calling me a ‘venal Bush hater’ are you saying that someone is paying me to criticize the Bush Administration? I can only dream of having so potentially lucrative a position. I could retire at 38. Or are you merely speaking ignorantly?
LeftHook, let me explain it to you.
See, even though as you suggest, 9/11 happened on the Bush watch, it was the fault of the Clenis. Just like the recession. It didn’t start until Bush was in office, but it was still Clinton’s fault. You need to pay closer attention to those TV commercials about time-activated cold medicine they show when you’re watching NASCAR or Pro Wrestling.
It’s all about little balls that desolve.
That sure brings republicans to mind, lol.
Does anyone have a password to the Boston Globe? I’m not going to register with that rag.
I read the first three pages of the article. So far it sounds to me like everything Bush has modified has to do with managing war and intel about the war and terrorists. But as I said I havent read the whole article.
As for the assertion by CF “because Bush is according himself the ultimate interpretation of the Constitution.” Utter BS! He could be challenged and taken to court over one of these decisions to ignore a law passed by congress, and guess what, the Supreme court could decide whether that decision was constitutional or not.
Heckler,
So, then what DOES ‘ultimate interpretation’ mean, then, Heckler? And what DOES the Supreme Court do but interpret the Constitution, Heckler?
If you can’t understand English, not my problem.
CF
The Supreme court has the ultimate interpretation, not Bush. Bush can’t “accord himself the ultimate interpretation of the Constitution.”
Heckler,
I agree. The problem is that the Administration thinks otherwise. Read the story.
The title of this thread is kinda stupid. A president is supposed to be an activist, he(or she) is supposed to push an agenda, be an advocate. Whereas a judge is supposed to (attempt) to be impartial with no agenda influencing decisions.
I guess the worse you can make it sound the more exciting it is to the echo chamber.
Don’t try to run away, Heckler. I’ve got you. Either make another argument or concede.
And don’t trot out your sneaky little Wingnut game of trying to shif the discussion by equivocating on the meaning of words. Presidents get to advocate policies and direction; they don’t get to be ‘activists’ or ‘advocate’ for a version of the law that they like when the legislative branch has passed a law that says something else.
“I’m the one who gets to usurp. I’m the usurper.
Sorry. It should read as follows:
“I’m the one who gets to usurp. I’m the Usurper.”
Heckler,RE: password for the Boston Globe, here’s something I ran across a while back. It’s supposed to get you past registration and passwords. I haven’t had time to try it out, but it comes highly recommended.
http://bugmenot.com/
XXX
Thanks but I’ve tried bugmenot a dozen times and have yet to get it to work for me.
CF
First of all you don’t ‘have me’.
Second of all I’d like to read the rest of the story before I go much farther with my arguement.
So far it sounds to me like a battle over who has the ultimate authority in running the war. I base this on examples that the Globe gave through page 3 of their article. If Congress is trying to tie the Commander in Chiefs hands then maybe they are overstepping their bounds. This is getting into some pretty lofty law that isnt well settled.
But if it gets you so wound up that your head explodes then I’m all for it. Go Bush.
Heckler,
Nice try, but that reply is not going to work. Many of the laws involved have zero to do with security or the military. The article makes this point well before the free three-page portion runs out.
Finish the article and get back to me. It won’t change a thing. I’ve got time.
Sorry, CF. This is not new Constitutional territory.
Every time Congress passes a statute, it interprets the constitution to some greater or lesser degree. Congress is bound by that constitution.
When a President acts, he is also bound by the constitution. If he believes that a statute violates the constitution, he bound by the higher law, the constitution. And within his administration (and only there), his intrepretation trumps Congress’s.
Ultimately, as both Congress and the President know, the SC will sort it out, as their application of the Constitution is binding upon both the Congress and the Administration.
Are this president’s interpretations stretching previous administration’s acts? Perhaps. And ultimately the SC will become “the decider.”
Constitutional gov’t in a three-branch system is a bumpy road. It has always been so. But the republic will survive.
Civics 101.
As to the analogy, it still stands. I may choose to prosecute certain laws, I may choose not to prosecute others. I have almost unfettered discretion in doing so. In doing so, I am making policy decisions. Further, in making charging decisions, I am making judgments daily about the constitutionality of acts of the legislature or acts of police. If I charge, I am interpreting the meaning of a statute passed by the legislature. A court may, ultimately agree or disagree with those interpretations or applications of law. My interpretation may or may not ultimately stand. But for the time I assert it, and until a court decides otherwise, my judgement is the one that is acted upon in the prosecution.
Scary thought, huh? But that’s how the system works.
And, JR, I’ll try to remain dispassionate, as much as possible. You may interpret that as “stuffy,” fine, I don’t particularly care about your judgments in that regard. But dispassionate is what I am trained to do, as best I can. Are there issues I feel strongly about? Sure. But bleating about them in hyperbolic language does not advance understanding, it only raises ire. And ire is something this blog has far too much of.
And, JR, judges can, and do, far more than just “interpret” law. Read Montoy. Read Simmons, SCOTUS. Then read Montoy again. The KSSC is legislating, my friend.
GMC70,
You are wrong. When I said Bush is claiming to have the ‘ultimate interpretation’ of the Constitution, thereby usurping the power of the Supreme Court, I meant it. Here’s another excerpt from the article:
***********************************
“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.
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.
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.”
A president who ignores the court, backed by a Congress that is unwilling to challenge him, Golove said, can make the Constitution simply ”disappear.”"
*********************************
That’s the game we’re in, GMC70 and Heckler. This isn’t ‘Civics 101′, unless we’re talking about the Nuremburg Laws rather than the U.S. Constitution. The President is claiming that the power of the Executive includes the right to decide what counts as Constitutional, over and against the powers invested in the Legislative and, yes, the Executive.
I’m still right. You’re still wrong. And we’re all still screwed.
That should have been ‘and, yes, the Judiciary.’ Damned itchy trigger finger!
To be frank, folks, I don’t think there’s ever been a bigger issue facing America in any of our lifetimes. We have a President who not only claims the right to decide what the law is, but also to decide when it is and is not in force. In effect, the Bush Administration claims to have sole authority over the law of law.
Show of hands: who here still thinks we aren’t now living under tyranny?
“One almost suspects a deliberate misunderstanding here.”
REALLY, with GMC. No, it CAN’T be!
He’s the past master of redifining what “is” is, after he’s already stated what is perfectly obvious but finds he needs to scoot away from that untenable position.
You can’t “win” against him. He just redefines his previous statements in ways that his statements can’t support.
He’s a lawyer, after all. They don’t speak English; they make claims that may or may not be true in the future depending on whether or not it benefits them or not.
My hand is raised.
But Bush has created so many problems, that this one doesn’t seem as bad as a lot of them are . . .
It’s like the mean old man who finally died. At his gravesite, the preacher ask the gathering to say a few kind words about the deceased.
Nobody could think of anything.
Finally as the silence grew excruciating, one sympathetic soul said, “well, at times he wasn’t as mean as he usually was.”
That’s Bush in essence–some of the horrible, illegal things he does aren’t as horrible and illegal as what he USUALLY does.
My hand is raised . . . and so is my finger.
CF:
“I’m still right. You’re still wrong. And we’re all still screwed.”
Proclaiming it does not make it so.
Sorry.
GMC70,
Indeed it doesn’t. That’s why you need to offer a REFUTATION to the ARGUMENT I made above. If you can’t refute my argument, I win.
Ask yourself: do you really want to go down in the annals of WeBlog as the prosecutor who was shown up on Constitutional questions by an academic philosopher?
GMC
I’ll leave you to C Fs mercies.
But I would ask you this.
Turn off your programming for just a second. I know it is your job to be dispassionate. But you are not at work here.
What does this “feel like”? What does your gut tell you about this excessive executive activism?
CF
Ah, CF, you are presuming you have done so. You presume much.
And JR, what it “feels” like is irrelevent.
Right GMC right.
Next activist President may be someone less to your liking though. Then you may “feel” differently.
GMC70,
Boy, you MUST be a lawyer: smugness comes so naturally to you.
I’ve stated my case. It is well-documented and quite comprehensible to any layperson. Your decision to play coy (nice ‘ah, grasshopper!’ pose, by the way) suggests that you know that the factual and conceptual grounds have eroded from under your position, but your pride makes you unwilling to concede the fact. That’s fine. At the moment, you look pretty damn stupid.
If you want to make an argument, I’ll be right here.
“Ask yourself: do you really want to go down in the annals of WeBlog as the prosecutor who was shown up on Constitutional questions by an academic philosopher.”
Indeed. This humble (well, okay, not-so-humble) computer geek can even see the holes in his argument. Shall we talk about the Youngstown v. Ohio, sir?
Well, let’s NOT, as I probably can’t keep up my end of the conversation these days (unless, of course, our resident philosopher wants to step in for me. . . :).
So, what is really at the heart of this disagreement, is Bush saying that his prerogative to interpret the Constitution exceeds the prerogative of the Supreme Court’s on this same subject?
Correct?
Basically yes, DD.
GMC is muddying the water, based on the reality that administrative interpretions of caselaw naturally are not always sync with what the courts meant. Booboos (sometimes deliberate) happen.
We’re not talking about hair-splitting nuances here: bright lines, levels of scrutiny, totality of the circumstances, yada yada yada. What we have here is open defiance of written laws; creative, sophist lawyering to make legal that which was plainly illegal.
What we have here is, as CF notes, a brazen assertion the executive interpretion of law can OVERRIDE Supreme Court determinations.
The police tell us laymen “ignorance of the law is no excuse,” but apparently open hostility to it is, at least if you’re powerful enough and have a fleet of lawyers at your disposal.
P.S. CF, GMC is indeed a prosecutor. Look at his e-mail address. 5 minutes with Google will tell you the rest.
I wonder how those tax payers in Butler County would feel about one of their employees having so much time to post? It is not my impression that those voters over there are real fond of government employees, period.
If we were to describe the relationships in this argument on the authority to interpret the constituion, they would be:
GMC:president equal to the Congress, but both are less than the supreme court
CF:Through his actions, Bush is asserting:
president greater than congresspresident greater than Supreme Court
Fair representation of the differences, here?
P.S. trying using the symbols, but that really messed things up.
“tried”
DD, yep.
The Globe story leads to this assertion, although the Bush folks wisely shy away from presenting it so baldly.
Rage, as always, you’re too kind.
Where is the outcry? in part other then here and on the message board. I have not seen nor heard anything about this!
Rage:
You’ve just destroyed my (apparantly not too) carefully protected anonymity. Thanks a lot!!
Like a lot of jobs; some days are busy, some are not. I thought I was gonna be in trial next week, but I gont bumped, so my busy week just got unbusy.
Oh well. The trial gods will get even soon, I don’t doubt.
GMC70,
Personally, I don’t begrudge anyone their blog time at work. Even my hypocrisy has its limits.
However, in the language of psychobabble, I would like some closure. You have seen the evidence that the President has asserted that his is the ‘final interpretation’ of the Constitution. This is fact. Having established this, what counterarguments can you offer? And if none, GMC70, I would ask you the same question every American needs to ask: how can one continue to support a President who has usurped the powers to make and interpret law?
writerdog,
Because it’s too terrifying, and because the media opted for Bush at the start and have been invested in him ever since. Hence the silence.
I think GMC70 argued in good faith because he still assumed that the Executive respected the separation of powers. This Executive DOES NOT. We are in a whole new ball game, and I, frankly, don’t know HOW one gets rid of such a President with a Congress that has enabled him every step of the way.
Here’s my Fall campaign slogan:
SAVE AMERICA FROM KING GEORGEVOTE DEMOCRATIC