Bush never says he will not follow unconstitutional laws.

[THIS POST WAS LOST OR RATHER SAVED IN A DRAFT FILE FROM July 25th, 2006 and Published October 11th, 2007: COMMENTS MAY FOLLOW BELOW]


So says Tony Snow.:in Sen. Specter preparing bill to sue Bush

"A great many of those signing statements may have little statements about questions about constitutionality," said White House spokesman Tony Snow. "It never says, ’We’re not going to enact the law."’

Well not exactly, but close enough for government work. But not close enough for constitutional work.

Besides it is not the enacting of a law but the following of it. Congress has enacted the law. But the devil is in the details of any bill that requires congress in it's current make up to do it's job.

New laws are quite worthless if the current laws are not enforced. If the Republican congress cannot even start an investigation it promised then how can they be counted on to sue the president. Many Republicans rally around the fear that the president could be impeached if the Democrats gain power. This is just the politics of stall tactics.

"Bush is not without congressional allies on the matter. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a former judge, has said that signing statements are nothing more than expressions of presidential opinion that carry no legal weight because federal courts are unlikely to consider them when deciding cases that challenge the same laws."

If we cannot be clear that the president intends to follow unconstitutional laws as Tony Snow's words imply, it will be hard know if he means to follow any at all, let alone challenge them.

It sure seems that for someone who seems to see things in black and white, there is a lot of gray area in the gray matter. Are terrorists combatants or criminals? He wanted a new category. Are laws constitutional or unconstitutional? He prefers to leave a third option.[paragraph]

Well,[uh...]there I go again. The rest... I've been there before.

[Comment 10-11-07 As I have now reviewed this post, which somehow slipped into draft form and was never posted till this date, I only add bold to the 2nd to last, now 3rd to last paragraph,(see Reagan touch). But I will try to explain that by implication in their choice of words in the second paragraph the signing statements are statements about questions about constitutionality and that he was not saying he won't enact them, but apparently won't even let us know who decides or when and if they are enacted. This bold italics portion adds to what I started to imply, which I think is more than an implication.]