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Bush Claims Right to Open Mail
And sadly, most of the questions about signing statements that I raised in a Nieman Watchdog essay last June still remain unaddressed. Foremost among them: Are these signing statements just a bunch of ideological bluster from overenthusiastic White House lawyers -- or are they actually emboldening administration officials to flout the laws passed by Congress? If the latter, Bush's unprecedented use of these statements constitutes a genuine Constitutional crisis.
A Rare Mention
There was a rare mention of signing statements at yesterday's briefing with press secretary Tony Snow, in the context of Bush's sudden interest in curbing congressional earmarks now that Congress is in Democratic hands.
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"Q Tony, the President has issued hundreds of signing statements where he's told Congress, basically, don't butt in and tell me how the executive branch should run its business. Why is it then appropriate for him now to tell Congress how it should be running its own processes?
" MR. SNOW: Now, wait a minute. Peter, what he said is that there are some times that he believes that the implementation language does not meet constitutional muster. And rather than getting into Congress's business, those signing statements have been looking for constitutional ways to fulfill the will of Congress and get them done effectively."
And in my Live Online discussion yesterday, a question from a reader made me wonder: Maybe Congress should offer to give up earmarks -- if Bush gives up signing statements?
A 'Bump'?
Warren P. Strobel and Nancy A. Youssef write for McClatchy Newspapers: "President Bush plans to order extra U.S. troops to Iraq as part of a new push to secure Baghdad, but in smaller numbers than previously reported, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
"The president, who is completing a lengthy review of Iraq policy, is considering dispatching three to four U.S. combat brigades to Iraq, or no more than 15,000 to 20,000 U.S. troops, the officials said. Bush is expected to announce his decision next week. . . .
"'Instead of a surge, it is a bump,' said a State Department official. He spoke on condition of anonymity, because Bush hasn't yet unveiled details of what the White House is calling a 'new way forward' in Iraq."
Jack Keane and Frederick W. Kagan, two of the intellectual architects of the "surge," wrote in a Dec. 27 Washington Post op-ed: "Bringing security to Baghdad -- the essential precondition for political compromise, national reconciliation and economic development -- is possible only with a surge of at least 30,000 combat troops lasting 18 months or so. Any other option is likely to fail."
But Kagan is suddenly whistling a different tune.
Strobel and Youssef write: "On Wednesday, Kagan cautioned against over-interpreting the number of troops being sent. More important, he said, is the number of individual combat brigades and battalions sent to Iraq and how they're deployed."
Return of the Neocons
Peter Spiegel writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Ever since Iraq began spiraling toward chaos, the war's intellectual architects -- the so-called neoconservatives -- have found themselves under attack in Washington policy salons and, more important, within the Bush administration. . . .
