It is truly amazing the transformation of a politician from out of office critic to in office actor. Obama, who criticised virtually every move Bush made, has now gone ahead and done exactly what Bush did. His volte face on presidential signing statements is yet another stunning example of the towering hypocrisy of the Left. The only thing worse is the pass the Left has given him on it.
Review & Outlook: The Imperial Presidency Redux - WSJ.com
Review & Outlook: The Imperial Presidency Redux - WSJ.com
More at the source.President Obama claimed in his 2006 campaign manifesto "The Audacity of Hope" that George W. Bush's alleged abuses of power had subverted the Constitution's "exquisite machinery," and in a 2007 speech he promised to "turn the page on the imperial Presidency." Now it seems that page won't be turned any time soon.
Democrats late last year passed an appropriations rider that denies funds for transferring enemy combatants currently held at Guantanamo to the U.S., in effect a ban on trying them as federal criminal defendants. And this week, the White House let it be known that Mr. Obama would issue a signing statement opposing Congress's bid via this provision to impair the exercise of the Constitution's core executive powersand in the war on terror, no less.
We agree with these Congressional Democrats (and Republicans) that Mr. Obama's fixation on civilian terror trials is an awful idea. Yet while Congress can limit spending in any number of ways, the President is Commander in Chief with the power to handle wartime detainees, as well as the chief law enforcement officer vested with the sole federal constitutional power to prosecute law breakers.
Separation of power questions run on a spectrum, and tension between co-equal branches is inevitable when powers conflict. If Mr. Obama's lawyers believe Congress is imposing conditions that restrict Presidential powerssuch as limiting prosecutorial discretion to bring criminal chargesthen he has every right to issue a signing statement laying out the White House's interpretation of executive power and giving the agencies authority to bypass these restrictions unilaterally.
This is not some new or partisan concept. Signing statements began with James Monroe, while Walter Dellinger wrote an authoritative signing statement opinion in 1993 when he was running President Clinton's Office of Legal Counsel. What really is notable, however, is the liberal revolution in constitutional interpretation now that Mr. Obama is President.
On the trail in 2008 in Billings, Montana, Mr. Obama said that "what George Bush has been trying to do, as part of his effort to accumulate more power in the presidency, is he's been saying, 'Well, I can basically change what Congress passed by attaching a letter saying, I don't agree with this part or I don't agree with that part. I'm going to choose to interpret it this way or that way.'"
Mr. Obamanot without mentioning that "I will obey the Constitution of the United States"added, "We're not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress, all right?"