2007: the "Imperial President" Bush uses signing statements to explain his disagreement with specific provisions of legislation he signs. Liberals thundered about impeachment. Liberal journalist Charlie Savage of the  Boston Globe won a Pulitzer for his continuing coverage of the "Constitutional crisis"...

In 2008 the President said this from the campaign trail:

"I disagree with that [issuing signing statements]. I taught the Constitution for 10 years. I believe in the Constitution and I will obey the Constitution of the United States - we're not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress." - Barack Obama (May 2008)

Now, Mr. Obama has issued more than 20 signing statements so far.The silence is deafening, the slobbering media could care less, it's their guy in the Oval Office, and Obama is objecting among other things to a conscience clause protecting chaplains from being forced to perform gay marriages, a provision objected to by his radical gay allies.

(Kind of like filibuster "reform": 2005 it was labelled the "nuclear option" when Republicans who controlled the Senate toyed with this idea...now the media cheerleads for it...)

WSJ:

 Perhaps the greatest irony of the Obama Presidency is how much it has vindicated the antiterror strategy of its predecessor. The latest example is President Obama's vexed statement in signing the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013.

Last week, President Obama wrote that "though I continue to oppose certain sections" of the defense bill, "the need to renew critical defense authorities and funding was too great" not to sign it. In his latest, Mr. Obama also criticized Congress for trying to limit his "constitutional duty to supervise the executive branch." This sounds a lot like the theory of the "unitary executive" that turned Bush-era officials like John Yoo into pariahs in the legal academy. Obama even suggested that if a provision "operates in a manner that violates constitutional separation of powers principles," he'll ignore it.

Democrats and most liberal journalists are now mute at this irony, though some on the anti-antiterror left admit they've been had. Andrea Prasow of Human Rights Watch declared last week that Mr. Obama should have vetoed the law: "The administration blames Congress for making it harder to close Guantánamo, yet for a second year President Obama has signed damaging Congressional restrictions into law."

You didn't seem to have any issues with Bush's signing statements?  The WSJ didn't have any problem with it either.  Sounds kind of hypocritical to be speaking out against them now.

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In response to DirtyWaterLover's comment:

Psst.  It was Obama who spoke out against them then, and is using them now.

Try to catch up.

In response to GreginMeffa's comment:

BOOM!!!!!

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In response to 12-Angry-Men's comment:

because all signing statements are the same and because Obama once spoke against them then that gives the wingnuts the option to write whatever the fcuk they want, no matter how stupid,  and PotUS can't object because he once spoke out against such statements.

[/QUOTE]


I disagree with that [issuing signing statements]. I taught the Constitution for 10 years. I believe in the Constitution and I will obey the Constitution of the United States - we're not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress." - Barack Obama (May 2008)

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In his latest, Mr. Obama also criticized Congress for trying to limit his "constitutional duty to supervise the executive branch." This sounds a lot like the theory of the "unitary executive" that turned Bush-era officials like John Yoo into pariahs in the legal academy. 

 

No, it really doesn't sound anything like that.

When the Obama Admin talks about the "president's authority to crush the testicles of a child in order to glean information about terrorists", then maybe we can compare.

AND, in the meantime, POTUS nominates one of the few lucid right-wing critics of the Iraq Debacle to be his SecDef.

Is it any wonder now that neo-con hawks like Kristol are losing their minds (again) over their obdicated responsibility for that failed war...?

GMAFB, already....

 

 

In response to MattyScornD's comment:

"When the Obama Admin talks about the "president's authority to crush the testicles of a child in order to glean information about terrorists", then maybe we can compare."

Lie much? No one ever suggested that was the proper line to follow, that statement is out of context, implying anyone suggested doing so. Of course, Obama crushes the bodies of many innocent family members including children , by indiscriminiate use of cruise missiles to kill terrorist suspects overseas. Which was illegal under Bush according to libs, now it is fine and dandy. What a crock.

"Liberal principles" is an oxymoron.

 

I think that we have a completely different understanding of the terms 'lucid' and 'right-wing' here...

 

 

Just for the record many conservatives had HUGE problems with Bush signing statements. The real problem here is Obama was a vocal opponent but now that he's president he happily resorts to the same tactics.

That's what hypocrisy looks like bro.

 

In response to ComingLiberalCrackup's comment:

It's not a lie.  Yoo's testimony was quite clear, as was Bush's LIE saying "We do not torture."  "Out of context" here, means, "Ooops!  I wish he hadn't said that."

Cue your tired dissembling about what "torture" really is despite the Army field manual, the Int'l Red Cross, etc., etc.....

Also, you should really read up on the differences between cruise missiles and drones. You might learn something.   As you point out yourself, Obama has faced strong criticism on the left about the drone strikes.  Bush rarely heard so much as a peep from the right.

 

In response to StalkingButler's comment:

Hagel was quite correct in his later criticisms, despite voting for the Iraq invasion initially.

Only an ill-informed partisan would claim Hagel as anything but right-wing.  But yeah, "RINO" is a lot easier to say than coming up with a more thoughtful critique of our next SecDef.

Some in the Senate will put on their little pageant for the cameras, and then he'll be confirmed handily.

 

A proposed amendment would have required federal authorities to estimate the number of Americans subject to secret wiretaps. It failed. In 2007, candidate Obama promised “no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens.” The FISA reauthorization keeps that promise only by making legal what once was not. In addition, as the ACLU reported last year, other forms of electronic eavesdropping have skyrocketed under Obama. More people were subject to warrantless “pen register” and “trap-and-trace” surveillance in the previous two years, the group reported, “than in the entire previous decade.”

It’s not clear whether renditions have risen or fallen since Obama took office. But, reported The Washington Post a few days ago, “Renditions Continue Under Obama, Despite Due-Process Concerns.” The administration also has gone to court—successfully—to shroud the details of rendition practices behind the cloak of state secrecy. (No word yet on whether Hollywood is planning a sequel to “Rendition.”)

Obama also signed into law a defense reauthorization bill allowing for the indefinite detention of American citizens, without charge or trial, by the military. The Bush administration had claimed such authority, and had even exercised it. Obama, emulating a frequent Bush practice, issued a signing statement promising not to use that authority. The signing statement does not bind future presidents—or, for that matter, him.

Candidate Obama promised to reform the Patriot Act. President Obama signed a three-year extension of its most controversial provisions, such as the one allowing federal agents to examine your library and medical records.

In response to MattyScornD's comment:

Yes, the International l Red Cross was cited by Democratic liberals as the arbiter of deciding Bush and Cheney were war criminals...but the Int l Red Cross also claim [put the partisan blinders on, quickly] that drone attacks are illegal under International law...wouldnt that make Obama a War Criminal, too? 

Jean-Marie Henckaerts & Louise Doswald-Beck, International Committee of the Red Cross, Customary International Humanitarian Law: Vol. 1: Rules 46 (2006) (“Launching an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, is prohibited.”).

In response to GreginMeffa's comment:

Psst.  If the repubes didn't care when Bush was doing it, then why do you care that Obama is doing them?

In response to DirtyWaterLover's comment:

Psst. If the liberals claimed Bush was a war criminal for keeping terrorist suspects in prison, because the leftist Intl Red Cross said so...then , sorry to say, under the Intl Red Cross your Messiah Obama with his instant death reigned upon terrorist suspects and their families, is a war criminal, too....

In response to ComingLiberalCrackup's comment:

Hear Hear!!

In response to ComingLiberalCrackup's comment:

I didn't say that.  I said they (ICRC) determined that detainees were tortured.  And they were.

I never said Bush and Cheney were war criminals; they were just gigantic, lying a**holes who conceived - then totally botched - the Iraq War and thus, part of the response to 9/11. 

OTOH, you are correct on one thing.  If drone strikes amount to a war crime, then so does torture of detainees, and vice versa, by the RC's standard.  I never claimed any different and have criticized POTUS many times over drones and wiretapping.

So, sorry to spoil your confused narrative...again.

 

 

 

In response to tvoter's comment:

He left out the part about torture.

Otherwise, I agree.

 

 

In response to MattyScornD's comment:

[/QUOTE]

OTOH, you are correct on one thing.  If drone strikes amount to a war crime, then so does torture of detainees, and vice versa, by the RC's standard.  I never claimed any different and have criticized POTUS many times over drones and wiretapping.

So, sorry to spoil your confused narrative...again. 

[/QUOTE]


So, you admit there may be a case for Obama under going a war crimes investigation?

In response to tvoter's comment:

OTOH, you are correct on one thing.  If drone strikes amount to a war crime, then so does torture of detainees, and vice versa, by the RC's standard.  I never claimed any different and have criticized POTUS many times over drones and wiretapping.

So, sorry to spoil your confused narrative...again. 

[/QUOTE]


So, you admit there may be a case for Obama under going a war crimes investigation?

[/QUOTE]

Sure.  Once they get through with investigating the Bush Admin. for war crimes for illegal torture.  Quid pro quo, y'know.

 

In response to MattyScornD's comment:
[/QUOTE]

Sure.  Once they get through with investigating the Bush Admin. for war crimes for illegal torture.  Quid pro quo, y'know. 

[/QUOTE]


lol thats what I thought! You are a fraud as well

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