It IS a fair and reasonable question. I was against signing statements for Bush. I am also against signing statements for Obama, and any other president who follows.
Seems reasonable to me, whether or not we’d agree on what was “fine.”
My question still stands to Piker. If you, too, are expressing the same basic sentiment as Hamlet, okay. But then your bitch with Bush (or any other president) is an ideological one, not an abuse of power per se, I would think. Bush had the right / duty to use signing statements, or he didn’t. His power is constitutionally restricted, or it’s not. Same applies to Obama, and any blanket condemnation of a particular president’s exercise of this practice should be answered with, “Too bad. Grit your teeth and get *your *guy elected.”
Which is what the Dems did. Obama’s statement is a specious distinction–Bush used his power for “evil,” I’ll only use it for “good” meaninglessness. Since “good” means “I’ll restrict the legislation to the extent I see fit.” Just as Bush did.
For me, there are two factors: 1) whether the courts have already spoken on the issue; and 2) whether the issue is of the type that can be resolved through the judiciary.
Here, Obama reserved presidential powers on issues resolved and settled long ago. While there are still those pimping Justice White’s dissent in Chadha (including myself, years ago in my ConLaw class), the issue of the legislative veto has been pretty much resolved. Same goes with dictating the terms of negotiations with foreign governments. These constitutional issues are so settled that the Executive Branch’s reaction to them are within the reasonable expectations of Congress.
Going back to the Bush signing statement on torture, for example, this use of the Commander-and-Chief powers is not the settled meaning of the constitution. The Administration knew they were doing something outside the reasonable expectations of Congress. Of course, no administration should be punished for having a novel interpretation of the Constitution.
But in making many of their signing statements, the Administration was ensuring the nonjusticiability of any claim aggrevied persons would bring to courts. The whole idea of a reserve commander-and-chief powers admits of little amenability to judicial decisions. If the Administration could ignore Congress because we are at war, then it could ignore the courts as well, and it oftentimes asked the courts to abstain from deciding issues because of the wartime posture.
So in the end, the Bush Administration got to push a controversial constitutional interpretation, without having to take the political points for vetoing legislation that contradicted it, nor having to take any risk that the judicial branch would roll them back. Using signing statements to that end, therefore, insulated them from the pressures of checks and balances. That, to me, is a controversial use of signing statements.
The problem is that this stuff is difficult to parse if you don’t have a background in law. Intelligent analysis of whether a particular signing statement invokes well-settled law requires some knowledge about areas of constitutional law that are generally unknown to laymen.
But liberal bias is not coloring the opinions of the legal types in this thread. I’m confident that if **Rand Rover **or Bricker pop into this thread, they will agree that the principle of no legislative vetoes is well-settled while the constitutional views contained in the DTA order were not.
We can debate whether Obama’s principle of restricting signing statements to well-settled law is a good one, or a necessary one, but I don’t think there’s a reasonable argument to be made that he has violated that principle, or that Bush did not.
For some, the fact that it was Obama who did it and not Bush is enough of a reason for the double-standard. After all, Obama is the Messiah and even if has had no other achievement other than getting elected he’s the ONE.
Wrong! Law school 1L classes are usually taught by the cream of the crop.
Can’t verify this because I didn’t go to Law School. No skin off my nose.
Piker, interesting response (to me). Thanks.
A piece of bullshit that you then go on to refute, immediately, yourself.
There’s a reason why it’s considered good sense to read your own links. Largely it’s so you know wtf you’re talking about, but also so you’re not hoisted by your own petard. Your own link says, quite clearly “His formal title was “senior lecturer,” but the University of Chicago Law School says he “served as a professor” and was “regarded as” a professor.”
You’ll also note, if you pay attention, that the source for FactCheck’s rebuttal of your nonsense is something I’ve already cited and quoted.
I’ll requote it for you, this time underlining the relevant parts so you can notice them. I know it’s not typing in all caps, but it should help you find the details under discussion. If you’re still confused, the relevant details generally deal with a word that starts with “prof” and ends with “essor.”
Ready?
Go!
And for extra credit, guess what the operative word is when one discusses an adjunct professor?
Piker has already cleared up your ignorance on that point.
Why, do you think, you’re making claims about law school without knowing anything about it? If you can’t verify it, why are you babbling and making claims you can’t verify?
Psst…Anduril, just a tip. I’m not one of Obama’s biggest fans here, and neither is FinnAgain. And if we’re not willing to jump on your bandwagon, it might be because you’re wrong in this particular point.
If you feel you’re not wrong, fire away, but you won’t have me backing you up on this one. Obama has what expertise he has. It doesn’t justify his decisions beyond a certain point, but it shouldn’t be dismissed either.
Did I say anything about how he was regarded or what functions he did? Of course a Senior Lecturer pretty much functions as a professor. But the fact remains that he is NOT a professor. And he is NOT published. So, if you want to base your assertion that Obama is an EXPERT in CONSTITUTIONAL LAW on the fact that he is a SENIOR LECTURER of consitutional law and NOT a PROFESSOR, then you’re free to do that. My thinking is that not all Senior Lecturers are experts on the subjects they teach and someone who is unpublished at that should be regarded less so. Unless your contention is that ALL UNPUBLISHED SENIOR LECTURERS ARE EXPERTS on the subject that they are teaching.
I did not make any claims about it. I was asked why I thought fit to post the fact that he was teaching 1st year law students. I answered that, normally, teachers on 1st year subjects are not really the brightest in the field but, I’m not really committed to that idea. I was happy to be corrected on that score even though I really don’t have any basis to verify. I can only go on Piker’s assertion. I’m not sure that he studies in Chicago Law School, but I took his word for it because it’s no skin off my nose.
I understand what you’re saying. I also understand that this is just a side issue. I only made a point of it because so many Obama fanatics around here keep on pointing at his tenure as a Senior Lecturer as somehow proof of his prodigious intellect. Given that he is not published, given that he has not demonstrated any competence beyond getting elected through the graces of the almighty MSM, I don’t really see anything beyond run-of-the-mill intelligence. You keep hearing about his enormous intellect in the news and you don’t see any evidence of it.
Trying to deny his experience is a fool’s errand. You’d be better off pointing out that it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter one bit if Joe Blowdini is a mathematics professor, if he says 2+2=7 then he’s clearly wrong unless he can make a convincing case for it. That’s different from saying that Blowdini isn’t really a professor. He is, it just doesn’t matter.
The thing is, he isn’t a professor. And I am certain that those given the title of Professor in that law school didn’t regard him as a Professor at the time (of course, now that he’s President…). It is a title with a distinction and it is not taken lightly in the academe. Obama knew that and wished to embellish his credentials. That’s fine. Every politician does that.
OK, can you stop? There was an interesting discussion going on here before you dropped in, and this argument has already been refuted by FinnAgain above. We get it. In your mind, unless a lecturer is on the tenure track, he is not a professor, even if he turned down the tenure-track gig and his colleagues still consider him to be a professor. That’s fine, I’m sure you know more about what it takes to be a University of Chicago professor than University of Chicago professors. Can we end this hijack?
-Piker
I can if you will. FinnAgain did not refute anything.
The University of Chicaco claims that it extended Obama offers to become a full-time, tenure track member of the university. Had he accepted, he would have been, in name as well as in fact, a PROFESSOR. By your logic, this would have conferred upon him a certain EXPERTISE.
But since he was only a LECTURER, you argue that we cannot presume he has a great deal of expertise.
Supposing that your claim is true, how exactly does the process of accepting an offer of full-time university work confer EXPERTISE that one could not presume before? If this were the case, how would any university hire anyone?
Your arguments are so absurd and specious, I only continue the hijack as a form of minor intellectual indulgence and to make absolutely certain that all silent readers are entirely aware of the utter paucity of your logic and the irrelevance of your position.
Now, Gilligan was pretty dumb. But was the Professor really a professor? Hmm? I notice nobody answering this one.
Actually, he did.
FinnAgain and I rarely agree and have had many very pointed exchanges in the past. But in this case, I have to say that his refutation was complete, thorough, and absolutely sufficient.
Seems to me that if a president uses a signing statement to clarify how he (or hopefully some day she) will enforce any ambiguities in a bill after it is signed into law, that sounds reasonable.
If a president uses a signing statement to say that (s)he won’t enforce a part of a bill that (s)he doesn’t agree with, for whatever reason, it sounds more like a line-item veto, which the Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional. And as far as I’m concerned, that means that if a president doesn’t agree with parts of a bill then (s)he should just veto the whole thing.
So, signing statement to clarify ambiguities, good thing.
Signing statements that say, I’ll enforce this part of a bill, but not that, bad thing.