Bush Thumbs Nose at Congress

In today's Globe, Savage writes: "President Bush this week declared that he has the power to bypass four laws, including a prohibition against using federal funds to establish permanent US military bases in Iraq, that Congress passed as part of a new defense bill.

"Bush made the assertion in a signing statement that he issued late Monday after signing the National Defense Authorization Act for 2008. In the signing statement, Bush asserted that four sections of the bill unconstitutionally infringe on his powers, and so the executive branch is not bound to obey them."

It's not like Savage was in on a secret. The signing statement was distributed to the press corps, and several Democrats yesterday took to the Senate floor to express their fury. (See below.) From the House side, Savage quotes Speaker Nancy Pelosi as saying: "I reject the notion in his signing statement that he can pick and choose which provisions of this law to execute. . . . His job, under the Constitution, is to faithfully execute the law - every part of it - and I expect him to do just that.'"

Savage also talked to legal specialists who disagreed with the administration's legal theory.

"'Congress clearly has the authority to enact this limitation of the expenditure of funds for permanent bases in Iraq,' said Dawn Johnsen, an Indiana University law professor who was the head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel during the Clinton administration. . . .

"Phillip Cooper, a political science professor at Portland State University, noted that Bush's statement does not clearly spell out the basis for any of his challenges. Cooper, who has been a pioneer in studying signing statements, said the vague language itself is a problem.

"'It is very hard for Congress or the American people to figure out what is supposed to happen and what the implications of this are,' Cooper said."

Here are some of the statements from the Senate floor yesterday.

Said Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee: "Congress has a right to expect that the Administration will faithfully implement all of the provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 -- not just the ones the President happens to agree with. . . .

"[T]he President vetoed an earlier version of this Act, which contained the same specific provisions that he singled out in his signing statement yesterday. The President did not choose to exercise his veto over these provisions, and as a result they have not changed in any way whatsoever in the version of the bill he chose to sign. With his signature these provisions become the law of the land. Congress and the American people have a right to expect that the Administration will now faithfully carry them out."

Said Sen. Jim Webb, cosponsor of the legislation to establish the commission to investigate military contracts: "[T]he President of the United States -- who has been in charge of the conduct of this war and whose administration has been in charge of executing these contracts, supervising them, making sure that they meet the requirements of fairness in the law -- is now saying that he believes that a legislative body can enact a law that he can choose to ignore because he says it would interfere with his responsibility to supervise a war as Commander-and-Chief.

"I am at a total loss here. I am amazed to see this kind of language employed with respect to this legislation.