POTUS on Presidential Signing Statements

[AZhitman]

According to RightChange:

In 2008, Obama promised he would never use signing statements. On April 15, 2011 Obama used a signing statement to avoid abiding by a provision in the budget bill to de-fund some of his czars.

And so far he has issued over 15 signing statements.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eci77PJACCs[/youtube]

Does this rank up there with the "immediate closing of Gitmo" and the wasting of two years dithering / flip-flopping on the military trials of the 9/11 terrorists? Or is it much ado about very little?

[IBCoupe]

No, it doesn't rank up there with the "immediate closing of Gitmo" or the "dithering/flip-flopping on military trials" because Congress has prevented him from doing so. They made it impossible to get detainees from Gitmo to American soil in the last Defense Reauthorization Act.

This is different because he's doing it of his own accord.

[stebo0728]

I look at Gitmo as a fault of his campaign. He should have either realized, or been better informed that what he was promising was out of the realm of reality. We may close it yet, but the "immediate" qualifier was definitely a stumbling block.

[IBCoupe]

At the time he was promising, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility. Heck, absent the Congressional action to arbitrarily restrict the President's ability to try inmates in federal courts or move them to American soil, it still wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility.

He's the Commander in Chief. If he wants to close a base, he can do it. If he wants the Justice Department to file in Federal Courts, he can do it. But Congress has placed restrictions, not on the President, but on these particular defendants, in what I can see as an unconstitutional deprivation of due process.