Hypocrisy Thy Name Is Obama

Monday Obama continued his string of undignified attacks on the previous administration, when he announced his views on the much maligned (by Democrats anyway) practice of presidential signing statements and his intention to use less of them.

Guess what the Dear Leader did today when he signed the omnibus spending bill.

[Obama] also issued a "signing statement" in which he objected to provisions of the bill that he said the Justice Department had advised "raise constitutional concerns." Among them are provisions that Obama said would "unduly interfere" with his authority in the foreign affairs arena by directing him how to proceed, or not to, in negotiations and discussions with international organizations and foreign governments.

Another provision, Obama said, would limit his discretion to choose who performs specific functions in military missions.

Now in fairness, during the campaign Obama, unlike John McCain, never promised to do away with them, just to use them in a smarter way or something.

"The problem with this [the Bush] administration is that it has attached signing statements to legislation in an effort to change the meaning of the legislation, to avoid enforcing certain provisions of the legislation that the President does not like, and to raise implausible or dubious constitutional objections to the legislation," Obama answered. But, he added: "No one doubts that it is appropriate to use signing statements to protect a president's constitutional prerogatives."

"Avoid enforcing certain provisions of the legislation that the President does not like"...is that anything like ignoring certain parts of the spending bill to get an extra vote or two?

I'm guessing that after a year, maybe two, the number of signing statements this administration issues will about the same as or greater than the Bush did during the same period.

posted by DrewM. at 08:24 PM

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