Signing Statments - Making a law that was a bill become toilet paper

Gordon on May 11, 2006

Another little doodle ripped from…hmmm…last week's headlines.

Apparently, the use of signing statements was used by other presidents to explain how they would execute the enforcement of the law they signed. Laws are made in Congress and it's the President's job to enforce them.

Or so it was.

In a recent article, the Boston Globe discovered that George Bush has attached more than 700 signing statements to laws.

And these aren't his father's signing statements! These are statements saying in effect “I'm signing this, but I'm not enforcing it” or “I'm signing this but I'm going to do what I want anyway.”

This means that the President's office - supposedly the executor of the laws - is taking the power of creating laws away from Congress. They're also supplanting their judgement of the validity of the law. In other words, the Bush Administration is taking powers from the other branches of government and increasing their own power.

I think I'm getting a better feel for the character. I worry that the President character came off too intelligently in this one. If the destruction of democracy can really be considered intelligent, that is.