more on President claims supreme power over laws, military -- 750 'signing statement'

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Andrew D. Swart" <andrew () swart com>
Date: May 11, 2006 10:46:51 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net, revers () evers org
Subject: RE: [IP] more on President claims supreme power over laws,  
military -- 750 'signing statement'
Reply-To: andrew () swart com

Ridge,

I agree.  I'm glad your note made it to the list.  I responded to Bob's
argument with:

Fair point.  However, while we wait for the courts to deal with the
constitutionality of these signing statements, the government has the
opportunity to potentially misbehave, as specified by each signing
statement.  This lag between the questionable behavior and any
corrective action -- which could be years -- is inherent in any complex
system of checks and balances.

I think what makes this president's behavior so troubling to so many is
the staggering breadth of the potentially unconstitutional behavior that
is being imposed on Americans (and the rest of the world) as a result of
these signing statements.  To put this into perspective... 750 divided
by 5 years equals 150 signing statements a year, or 3 per week (which
may correspond to the president's average number of working days/week,
if we're to believe reports of this president's fondness for taking
vacations).  It seems to me that an average of 3 signing statements
every week is a sign of someone who isn't grappling with an occasional
constitutional conundrum, but someone who simply doesn't feel bound by
the constitution.  The unfavorable comparisons with Nixon are not the
result of some liberal conspiracy; they are the result of comparable
behavior and attitudes coming to light.

Andrew Swart



> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
> Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2006 6:02 AM
> To: ip () v2 listbox com
> Subject: [IP] more on President claims supreme power over
> laws, military -- 750 'signing statement'
>
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Ridgely Evers <revers () evers org>
> Date: May 10, 2006 9:22:57 PM EDT
> To: "'David Farber'" <dave () farber net>
> Subject: RE: President claims supreme power over laws, military --
> 750 'signing statement'
>
> Dave,
>
> I'm not sure I buy Bob's argument.
>
> As I understand it, none of the self-granted exemptions are subject
> to Court
> review until a case is brought, meaning that damage has allegedly
> been done.
>
> Given that the first question that will need to be resolved is the
> validity
> of the President's exemption, before even getting to the
> question of a violation of the underlying law, this approach
> is likely to impose substantial delays in getting to the
> 'meat' of an issue -- and as we've already seen with this
> President -- a lot of damage, once done,
> cannot be
> undone.
>
> I'm waiting for the shoe to be dropped by King George II.
> With his popularity tanking at a startling rate, one can
> easily imagine them discussing the pros and cons of martial law...
>
> --Ridge



-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/