The Road of Bones

From Charlie Savage, staff writer with The Boston Globe … (link)

When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.

After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a ''signing statement" -- an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law -- declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said.

''The executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President . . . as Commander in Chief," Bush wrote, adding that this approach ''will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President . . . of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."

Some legal specialists said yesterday that the president's signing statement, which was posted on the White House website but had gone unnoticed over the New Year's weekend, raises serious questions about whether he intends to follow the law.

Translation –

“Screw McCain. Screw Congress. Pass all the laws you want. I’m going to torture people if, when, and where I want to.”

You got that, America?

But here’s the kicker. The “signing statement” is an invention of none other than Samuel Alito! From Christopher Lee, staff writer with The Washington Post … (link)

In a Feb. 5, 1986, draft memo, Alito, then deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, outlined a strategy for changing that. It laid out a case for having the president routinely issue statements about the meaning of statutes when he signs them into law.

Such "interpretive signing statements" would be a significant departure from run-of-the-mill bill signing pronouncements, which are "often little more than a press release," Alito wrote. The idea was to flag constitutional concerns and get courts to pay as much attention to the president's take on a law as to "legislative intent."

McCain passed an anti-torture bill which bans the use of torture under all circumstances. It was backed by all but nine members of the Senate. Bush and Cheney threatened a veto. They just like torture, I suppose. But when they realized that they simply could not overrule Congress, Bush agreed to stop torturing prisoners. So the bill passes, and Bush invokes the ALMIGHTY POWER OF ALITO to issue a blanket statement that makes the law irrelevant.

So, what good is Congress if nothing they do matters?

WE MUST NOT ALLOW THIS TO BECOME PRECEDENT!

This is setting the stage for a dictatorship in America. If the President can just bat his eyes at our representatives and issue a “signing statement” that basically renders a law null and void by saying “The executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President,” then we’re all screwed. If this is allowed to stand … if Bush is allowed to remain in office through the end of his term and actually leaves the White House peaceably, any future president would be able to pick up that precedent like a shotgun and run amok, doing whatever the hell he or she wants.

My question is, what happens if Bush is impeached by Congress, but then seizes upon this power “consistent with the constitutional authority of the President”? According to these Neo-Con freaks, the President can do whatever he wants, including a complete over-ride of the Fourth Amendment, and the suspension of the Bill of Rights in time of dire emergency.

Good God, I hope we don’t ever have a situation like that. But we just took a BIG step closer to it.

Posted by The Gonzo Muckraker on Wednesday, January 04, 2006 at Wednesday, January 04, 2006 | Permalink