In response to last night's post McCain, Warner, & Graham defy Bush, a reader wrote the following:


The NYTimes on Bush presser today reports that "Perhaps significantly, Mr. Bush did not threaten to veto a bill if it embodies the provisions that the Senate Armed Services Committee endorsed on Thursday, provisions involving the trial and questioning of suspects that the White House has termed unacceptable." Is there anything to stop Bush from once again issuing a "presidential statement" on the bill once it's signed?


The NYTimes piece they refer to dissects the fallout after Republican Senators John McCain, John Warner, and Lindsay Graham chose to defy President Bush on how he wants military tribunals designed for the trying of suspected terrorists. 

Specifically, the senators defied him on two central issues: they rejected his demand that terrorist suspects not be allowed to see classified evidence presented against them, and they rejected his request that articles of the Geneva Conventions banning torture be "clarified" to allow waterboarding, "stress" positions, whatever else Bush can think of.

But, as the reader points out, does it really matter if Bush is stopped by Congress?  It hasn't before, right?  Bush has appended personal "signing statements" to more than 740 new laws since he was appointed president.  Legal scholars inside and outside the government have determined that President Bush is using these legislative epilogues to unilaterally redefine and reapply how laws passed by Congress will, or will not, be enforced by the executive branch.

But has he succeeded?  The biggest signing statement controversy to date was born of yet another Bush-McCain showdown—wouldn't you know it, also over torture!  Signing a bill McCain sponsored outlawing that practice, Bush added that he didn't believe it could constitutionally apply to him. 

Right.  A bill banning the torture of terrorist suspects by United States armed forces, the CIA, and every other branch of the U.S. Government applies to everyone but the commander-in-chief of the United States armed forces, the CIA, and every other branch of the U.S. Government.  It applies to any employees of those governmental organizations unless the chief executive of those governmental organizations tells them otherwise.  Man, that is good!

Here's my take: the signing statement didn't work, and that's why Bush finds himself here yet again.  Why would Bush be fighting so hard for legislative approval of his torture specs if his signing statement was all he needed to ignore the law?  The reason?  Because even our rigged, right-wing judiciary has enough decency to say fuck off to his encroaching executive power. 

Bush knows his only shot at defeating the judiciary is to get this bill passed by his Republican-controlled Congress before they lose their majority.  He knows it is far easier for the Supreme Court to overturn secret executive orders applied by fiat, than to defy laws passed by a democratically elected branch of government.  More importantly, he knows those laws carry a hell of a lot more weight with the Supremes than his ridiculous "signing statements".

He expected Congress to do his bidding within the next 2 weeks.  With these four somewhat principled Republicans saying no, it's going to take a lot longer than that, if this ends up going anywhere at all.

        

 

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