Bush Generates Too Many ‘Signing Statements’

The functions of this government are limited by the system of checks and balances the founding fathers so wisely put in place. No one branch must be allowed to accrue too much power to itself or the system will be OUT of balance. That is what we have here. If Bush does not want certain laws to be enacted, that is what his veto pen is for. One cannot sign a bill into law while simultaneously stating ‘I’m going to ignore what I just signed because I don’t agree with it.’ And just because these signing statements have been used by presidents over the last several decades does not make it right; slavery was legal for centuries but I don’t think I’ll see any comments that it shouldn’t have been abolished.

Congress has a duty – not an option, a duty – to check presidential power. That’s what the document says folks.

I do not buy the administration’s argument that laws hamstring them from acting. There is plenty of leeway in existing law for that. I realize we are at war but we must not allow that fact to undermine our principles of law – otherwise the terrorists win regardless of the outcome in the field. We should not allow the freedoms bought with the blood of generations to be degraded, not for anything. Down that path lies the way to tyranny.

We must safeguard the freedoms we have or we wind up with abuses of power like those that occurred in the Nixon administration, where under the guise of protecting the country from communism, government agencies were busily spying on U.S. citizens doing nothing more than expressing disagreement with policy, and during the McCarthy era where merely suggesting someone was a communist was enough to blackball them for decades.

If conservatives want the president to have that kind of power, you should look at countries like Russia and China, where that kind of power structure does exist and dissent is violently crushed. It doesn’t take long for high ideals like protecting security to fall into oppression – that is what the founding fathers understood and what we need to learn from them. Just ask any Japanese-American citizen interned during World War II.