Congress, Constitutional Law, Politics, Society

Carney: Obama Was For Signing Statements Before He Was Against Them

Jay Carney says President Obama was never against signing statements, just when President Bush “abused” them. In the press conference, Jay Carney seems to morph with John Kerry, who believed he had found safe political ground by noting that he voted for something before voting against it. For his part, Obama morphed into George W. Bush a while back on civil liberties and constitutional issues.

As on so many issues of civil liberties and constitutional law, Obama appears determined to legitimate and expand on the Bush policies. There appears to be little concern over the direct conflicts in his positions in running for the office and his positions as president. The White House is now relying almost entirely on a cult of personality for liberals to ignore that fact that Obama now stands against many of the defining liberal and libertarian principles.

Carney was confronted over the Bush-like refusal of Obama to comply with federal law and to use signing statements. His response is truly Kerryesque:

“His concern was with what he saw as an abuse of the signing statement by the previous administration. So that the positions he took in signing statements on the budget bill entirely consistent with that position, you need to retain the right to, as president, to be able to issue those signing statements, but obviously they should not be abused.”

Here is what he said when running for this office in 2008:

“That’s not part of his power, but this is part of the whole theory of George Bush that he can make laws as he goes along. I disagree with that. I taught the Constitution for 10 years. I believe in the Constitution and I will obey the Constitution of the United States. We’re not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress,” then-Senator Obama said as a presidential candidate in 2008.

Carney’s statement is, however consistent with the White House approach in other areas. Obama has continued many of the policies of Bush in blocking the investigation of torture, fighting public interest lawsuits on privacy etc. The single consistent position appears to be “I am Barack Obama so it is better when I do it.” What is remarkable is that many Democrats appear to agree from their silence. Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer have even publicly praised Obama for his undeclared war in Libya. After all, it is Barack Obama and he was against undeclared wars before he was for them.

Source: RealClearPolitics

Jonathan Turley

69 thoughts on “Carney: Obama Was For Signing Statements Before He Was Against Them”

  2. I guess the best thing to do is to ask this question. What do you think of JT saying: “The White House is now relying almost entirely on a cult of personality for liberals to ignore that fact that Obama now stands against many of the defining liberal and libertarian principles.”?

  3. Neither Professor Turley nor Glenn Greenwald has expressed commonality with the tea party that I am aware. Neither has advocated overthrowing Obama.

  4. I did respond Eliane. I don’t think I’m getting through. That’s why I used JTs’ quotes: ““The White House is now relying almost entirely on a cult of personality for liberals to ignore that fact that Obama now stands against many of the defining liberal and libertarian principles.” and “The single consistent position appears to be “I am Barack Obama so it is better when I do it.” What is remarkable is that many Democrats appear to agree from their silence. Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer have even publicly praised Obama for his undeclared war in Libya. After all, it is Barack Obama and he was against undeclared wars before he was for them.”

    This is what I’m saying, nothing different. I tried again to explain and respond today by saying: “No group, not even the Tea Party is a monolith, so I am not saying everyone who is a liberal or a Democrat believes in reactionary policies, but many do. I will also say that not every Tea party member believes in the core ideas Mike A. listed yesterday, but many do. Therefore, we must look only at actions, not labels and respond accordingly.” I just don’t know what else to say. I was hoping by quoting JT and referring to Glenn Greenwald who constantly brings up liberals and Democrats supporting actions done by Obama what they used to condemn when done by Bush as a way of showing what I meant. I keep saying that I am referring to MANY liberals or Democrats, that groups aren’t monoliths, which doesn’t mean most or all (I agree words have meanings). So I’m at a loss as to where to go now.

  5. Jill,

    You wrote the following on the Tea Party thread:
    “Mike A. everything you write is correct. The problem is who is and who isn’t included in supporting the value system of the tea party. What has happened in our nation is that people who consider themselves polar opposite of the tea parties, people who truly feel they are liberals, have come to believe in and support extreme right wing positions.”

    I responded to you as I did on that thread for the following reasons:

    1) You made a generalization about liberals that does not hold true for many of us liberals.

    2) You were comparing apples and oranges. Tea Partiers are members of the Tea Party. Liberals may belong to a number of different parties–or may have no party affiliation at all. Liberals may be members of the Democratic Party, the Green Party…or they may be Independents.

    In addition, there are liberals like Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, and others who have criticized President Obama on a number of issues. Kucinich even brought up the suggestion that the President’s decision on the US bombing of Libya was an impeachable offense.

    Words have meaning. You made a generaliztion about liberals on the other thread. I argued the point you made about Tea Partiers and Liberals holding the same far-right positions. I listed a number of issues on which Tea Partiers and Liberals hold vastly different opinions in comments that I addressed to you. You didn’t respond to those comments. I’m not sure why.

  6. mahtso,

    A good discussion of this issue may be found at Glenn Greenwald’s blog. The particular recent signing statement is one in which Obama decides he can ignore the power of the purse delegated to Congress. This dovetails into exactly what Bruce Fein was writing about in his articles of impeachment. He said: “If he {Obma} can wipe out the war powers authorization, why can’t he wipe out Congress’s authority to spend?” asked Fein.” If we’re going to be a government of laws, and not descend into empire, this is Caesar crossing the Rubicon.”

    This decision to ignore Congress as the funder of the govt. is quite dangerous. If by some miracle Congress did stop funding our many wars of empire and our many bailouts of the criminally wealthy, what happens if Obama decides he will unilaterally fund more wars and bailouts? Why couldn’t he do this if Congress isn’t raising a peep, and neither are most of the people?

  7. I understand that this post is about the President and not signing statements per se, but for those of us who don’t know: why are signing statements “wrong?” (As a corollary are all signing statements wrong, or just some?) How do signing statements differ from legislative history as a tool for statutory construction?

  10. I can’t help but remember a story about a guy with a ring… something about power corrupting.

    And no, I’m not talking about Wagner or Tolkien.

  12. The Privacy Act of 1974 required all agencies to have Data Integrity Boards and for those boards to do various things and be composed in certain ways. They would then be governed by the Administrative Procedure Act which includes the Freedom of Information Act and the Open Meetings Act. So even if meetings were closed and information was kept private there would still be advance public notice that there would be a meeting and some explanation as well as an after the fact record.

    The Privacy Act 5 USC 552a (u) also requires affirmative acts under the administration of the Data Integrity Board. These would be public meetings.

    For instance, in subsection (d) an agency is supposed to receive requests to correct records and if the request is denied then they are supposed to send a written explanation within 10 days.

    Right now, the government has a formal written procedures under the Freedom of Information Act. If you write and ask for a record they will assign request number and then certain things are supposed to happen.

    My federal experience is mainly with DOJ. I spent a lot of time reading about DOJ. DOJ announced it had a Data Integrity Board under Attorney General Thornburg but apparently it had no meetings. A college professor wrote about the appointment and it is in an old u.s. attorney magazine.

    In 2009- 2010, I made a super effort to get reports that are supposed to be filed under the Privacy Act by DOJ. I didn’t get any court order but eventually thru FOIA I got one one paragraph report dated 2006. Then I wrote again to get minutes of any meetings since 2005 and was informed there were none. So the idea is that the 2006 report was filed without a meeting. What DOJ sent me a few months ago had no signatures.

    Basically it seems that when DOJ gets complaints that it has violated the Privacy Act it ignores them unless people actually file a lawsuit.

    Governments’-Attic is an organization that gets lists of FOIA requests and publishes them. They get the info they publish from the government. I took a list of Privacy Act lawsuits and compared it with FOIA requests over the same timeframe and found that very few of the cases that made it into court are shown as having any pre suit government contact but I know this is not true.

    There is a lawsuit pending now in the Supreme Court related to whether the government has liability for emotional damages when it intentionally violates the Privacy Act or only for damages of the right to petition the court and prove able economic damages. The issue was decided against the government in the court of appeals and the government filed a petition for supreme court review. It is Stanmore Cawthon Cooper v. Federal Aviation Administration. The initial papers are on USDOJ.gov.

    In its petition, the solicitor general says that if the government has to pay for emotional damages it will be really expensive because they intentionally damaged the emotions of a lot of people.

    Where are the reports on the complaints from these people?

    Homeland Security has a Data Integrity Board that publishes notices of meetings and minutes. Department of Justice does neither.

    (u) Data Integrity Boards

    (1) Every agency conducting or participating in a matching program shall establish a Data Integrity Board to oversee and coordinate among the various components of such agency the agency’s implementation of this section.
    (2) Each Data Integrity Board shall consist of senior officials designated by the head of the agency, and shall include any senior official designated by the head of the agency as responsible for implementation of this section, and the inspector general of the agency, if any. The inspector general shall not serve as chairman of the Data Integrity Board.

    (F) shall provide interpretation and guidance to agency components and personnel on the requirements of this section for matching programs;

    (G) shall review agency record-keeping and disposal policies and practices for matching programs to assure compliance with this section; and

    (H) may review and report on any agency matching activities that are not matching programs.

    (4)(A) Except as provided in subparagraphs (B) and (C), a Data Integrity Board shall not approve any written agreement for a matching program unless the agency has completed and submitted to such Board a cost-benefit analysis of the proposed program and such analysis demonstrates that the program is likely to be cost effective.

    (5)(A) If a matching agreement is disapproved by a Data Integrity Board, any party to such agreement may appeal the disapproval to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Timely notice of the filing of such an appeal shall be provided by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to the Committee on Governmental Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Government Operations of the House of Representatives.

    (B) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget may approve a matching agreement notwithstanding the disapproval of a Data Integrity Board if the Director determines that–
    (i) the matching program will be consistent with all applicable legal, regulatory, and policy requirements;
    (ii) there is adequate evidence that the matching agreement will be cost- effective; and

    (iii) the matching program is in the public interest.

    (C) The decision of the Director to approve a matching agreement shall not take effect until 30 days after it is reported to committees described in subparagraph (A).
    (D) If the Data Integrity Board and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget disapprove a matching program proposed by the inspector general of an agency, the inspector general may report the disapproval to the head of the agency and to the Congress.

    (6) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall, annually during the first 3 years after the date of enactment of this subsection and biennially thereafter, consolidate in a report to the Congress the information contained in the reports from the various Data Integrity Boards under paragraph (3)(D). Such report shall include detailed information about costs and benefits of matching programs that are conducted during the period covered by such consolidated report, and shall identify each waiver granted by a Data Integrity Board of the requirement for completion and submission of a cost-benefit analysis and the reasons for granting the waiver.
    (7) In the reports required by paragraphs (3)(D) and (6), agency matching activities that are not matching programs may be reported on an aggregate basis, if and to the extent necessary to protect ongoing law enforcement or counterintelligence investigations.

    So basically several administrations both Democrat and Republican decided to ignore statutory requirements to implement complaint reception and reporting systems and also to skip having meetings in which they were required to consider whether they were doing certain things, such as receiving complaints, or creating systems of records that it doesn’t disclose to Congress and the public through the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations.

    DOJ has many components and many systems and DOJ has set up FOIA/PA implementation around the agency components but it avoids a public hearing on the effects of DOJ’s master system. In other words, the Code of Federal Regulations addresses various statutory disclosure regulations about certain systems such as the Warrant Information Network, Joint Automated Booking Systems, and systems that keep track of people who have filed FOIA requests or filed an application for government employment. But there is very little disclosure about information shared within these systems. If the Data Integrity Board actually had meetings some of the ways that systems of records affect civil and political rights might be addressed and put into the system specifications, training manuals, and personnel administration.

  13. President Obama said,”I taught the Constitution for ten years. I believe in the Constitution and I will obey the Constitution of the United States.”
    A good way to prove his Constitutional credentials would be to go to the Quantico Gulag and bring Bradley Manning a shirt, a pair of pants and whatever else he needs to live in dignity before his FAIR and LEGAL trial.
    And, before you leave, Mr. President, stop in at the Commandant’s office and remind him that this is the United States of America, not the Peoples Republic of North Korea. And remind him that in American prisons,inmates sleep undisturbed with the lights off. And that inmates are not drugged into a state of stupor to get them to make false confessions or get them to commit suicide. And that prisoners, especially those who have not been convicted of a crime, are entitled to receive visits IN PRIVATE with United States Congressmen and officials of the United Nations.
    Mr. President, you might also review the 6th Amendment of the Constitution you love so well: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury…”. That means a fair and public trial, not a military kangaroo court hidden from public view so that Bradley Manning can be railroaded into prison on trumped up charges by military officers more interested in protecting their careers than in seeing justice done.

  14. Frank, I disagree with you on this. We should quit worrying about the 2012 election and stand against executive/congressional wrong doing right now. 2012 is too late. What is happening right now is dangerous. It needs to be confronted immediately. Every illegality you let Obama get away with now will pass to him in 2012 and whoever is next in 2016.

    We have another path than waiting to vote. We can peacefully resist this criminal govt. NOW. If we do so, we have a chance. If we do not resist, there is no chance things will get better. It is up to we the people. We should take the responsibility and be brave.

  15. Elaine,

    These quotes from JT’s post today are exactly what I was speaking about yesterday. Glenn Greenwald points to this phenomena in his columns as well: “The White House is now relying almost entirely on a cult of personality for liberals to ignore that fact that Obama now stands against many of the defining liberal and libertarian principles.” and “The single consistent position appears to be “I am Barack Obama so it is better when I do it.” What is remarkable is that many Democrats appear to agree from their silence. Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer have even publicly praised Obama for his undeclared war in Libya. After all, it is Barack Obama and he was against undeclared wars before he was for them.”

    This is what I mean when I say liberals and Democrats believe in and support reactionary policies. They attribute reactionary policies solely to Republicans and the Tea Party, yet they also hold these same ideas. No group, not even the Tea Party is a monolith, so I am not saying everyone who is a liberal or a Democrat believes in reactionary policies, but many do. I will also say that not every Tea party member believes in the core ideas Mike A. listed yesterday, but many do. Therefore, we must look only at actions, not labels and respond accordingly.

  16. What Frank said, with emphasis on “we as a nation are well and completely screwed.” (Well said, Frank.)

  17. It would be nice to live in a world where we would have an alternative to the Prez in 2012. But in the world we live in the choice will come down to some marginally batshit insane Republican or Obama. Not that crap like Nader won’t be on the ballot but that will just be a way to increase the margin of victory for the Republican. So we are stuck with a semi-sane Republican President with a very low bar on ethics until 2016. We as a nation are well and completely screwed.

  19. I taught the Constitution for 10 years. I believe in the Constitution and I will obey the Constitution of the United States. We’re not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress,” then-Senator Obama said as a presidential candidate in 2008.

    Lying POS

  20. Not only is this haunting the President, as the debt ceiling debate gets closer and the Repubs start showing where the President when he was a Senator didn’t want to raise the debt ceiling.

    Words have consequences.

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