There is an op-ed piece in the New York Times about President Bush and something called signing documents. I'd never heard of such things before but am completely dumbfounded that this is permitted in a democracry.
"The signing statements are documents that earlier presidents generally used to trumpet their pleasure at signing a law, or to explain how it would be enforced. More than any of his predecessors, the current chief executive has used the pronouncements in a passive-aggressive way to undermine the power of Congress."
According to the piece, which you can read here, Bush has issued 100s of these documents and does so whenever he believes a newly passed law "impinges on his constitutional powers."
I must be naive. How can the leader of a democratic country ignore its legislation?
The op-ed piece goes on to discuss the latest signing documents. The first Bush signed was against a Congress-sanctioned commission to look into the fraud, waste and abuse surrounding contracting in Iraq; the second, a law that would protect those who expose this type of fraud, waste and abuse; and the third, a measure that would require intelligence officials to respond to queries from the Armed Services Committees of Congress. If those acts weren't evil enough, Bush rejected a piece of legislation -- "which states that none of the money authorized for military purposes may be used to establish permanent military bases in Iraq."
Q: When is the U.S. pulling out of Iraq?
A: Never, ever, ever.
At least if Bush were to have his way. Good thing the American pres can only hang around for eight years.
Now don't mess up in November, people! Get out there and vote; don't leave your country in the hands of the religious right. With a possible recession on the way, the last thing you want a right-winger to have at his disposal is the economic advantage of keeping on with a war to bolster the economy.
Colleen
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About Me
- Colleen
- Nova Scotia, Canada
- I am a writer, beachcomber and am interested in very nearly everything.
Ideas Change the World All the Time
Welcome to Colleen's blog. Here you can read about my explorations -- and occassional rants -- as I try to find the meaning of life.
6 comments:
Hi Coleen ...IT is both scary and unusual as to the how's and whys to be sure ....I know trying to follow all the news coming out of the media doesnt help much ...there seems to be 2 or 3 camps and may be even more ...I know msm seems consistent in what it doesnt show ...the suffering as the results of the war ...I think that people in general have lost their moral compass ...We seem to think that making good will result from stopping the bad ...and then there is the definition of good and bad ...C.S. Lewis once said that Bad comes from good ..that is that without good we could have no bad ...I think it is unlikely that good can never come from bad ....
If what is happening in the US is any indication as to where humanity is headed then I guess we are all in for a very rough ride ..I think it is important to vote in a democracy but what the US calls democracy is something else .....
Its hard to find a reliable source for news unless you take the alternate approach ....at least with blogs and comments hashing out the subject matter one can decide and recognize some sort of stand ..have a good one and keep up the work .....terry ...aka Katou
It is scary, but it may be even scarier than you think. He's been doing this thing with the signing statements throughout his entire term... and we've all known it (me and my fellow Americans). It's gotten coverage by the news here, and the coverage has been appropriate (ie: critical), but for some reason there hasn't been that much uproar. How's that for scary?
I was disappointed the impeachment thing went nowhere. Heck, we impeached the last guy for perjury (in private, civil litigation).
Using the Clinton impeachment as a barometer, you'd think perpetrating a fraud (re: Iraq), ingoring the laws of congress (especially when he could just veto the legislation if he didn't like it), and essentially usurping the role of the Federal courts (whose job it is to determine the constitutionality of laws) MIGHT call for an indictment by Congress. (Not to mention a ton of smaller things that could fill books.)
There was an interesting piece on Bill Moyer's show (it's a public broadcasting show in the US) where he spoke to some of the folks involved in the Clinton impeachment. These folks were advocating a Bush impeachment, based in part on the signing statement shenanigans. What made the piece interesting (for me) was that these were all loyal Republicans - members of the same political party (as Bush). That led a little credibility to the piece, since it was less likely to be a cheap political hit job.
Knowing that all of this was going on made his 2004 re-election so depressing. I get the sense that people around the world think less of us as a whole after these last few years... and with good reason. We're letting it happen.
It's nice that we've got a chance to do something different later this year, but it's not soon enough. Why couldn't we have figured this all out in 2000? The election between him and Gore should have never been close enough for Florida to screw up.
I'm sorry Colleen. I didn't mean to bring my soapbox with me. I thought about deleting it, but I didn't want to waste a rant. I hope you don't mind.
Katou: Nice to hear from you... it's been a while. Hope all is well. C
John: I just don't get it. Truly. Americans have always been so vocal about democracy. I just can't make this add up. In a recent poll of Cdns, just over 50% believe that the biggest threat in the world today is the U.S., not global warming or ongoing unrest, but our neighbours. Let's hope whomever is elected really turns things around. How have we arrived at a place where diddling an intern is worthy of so much attention while breaking the law causes barely a ripple of concern?
Thanks as always for dropping by... I love a good rant!
Hey Colleen— Another PBS show, Frontline, recently had a special (it's an in-depth investigative show, so I guess they're all "specials") called Cheney's Law that delves deeply into the signing statements issue, basically holding that it's been Cheney's goal in life since the Nixon Administration to increase (or, as he sees it, restore) the powers of the Executive Branch. Signing statements are just one of his many methods his attorney has used— they've also made end-runs around the Justice Department and Congress in other ways.
Too bad they'll most likely be yielding all those hard-won powers to a Democratic Constitutional lawyer in eleven months. I hope Cheney's life's work can be dismantled as easily as the Constitution was.
Which isn't to say that I think Bush is an innocent party here! I just don't think he would have come up with this particular outrage on his own. Kangaroo courts? Oh, yes. Hundreds of legislation-negating signing statements? No.
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