Another Reason To Hate Bush

Took a very good class this week which focused on the Constitution, and everyone there was just railing about Dubya's use of signing statements. My first thought was, signing what?

I'm not sure why I hadn't heard of these yet, but they are truly shocking. What happens, is after Congress has passed a bill, Bush signs it, but with it files an extra statement saying how he will interpret the bill and how his bureaocracy should follow it. Dubya has done this 750 times, more than all other Presidents combined.

It would be one thing if he was just clearing up his take on it, but he's actually using it to ignore all or parts of the passed bills. Like with the Torture Bill, he added that he didn't have to actually not torture people. There are many other examples, like adding to a bill that said the US could not use military in the Columbia, a statement that said he could.

Wow. What an incredibly ingenious method to get your way. Never veto a single bill, but instead just interpret it however you damn well please? Very very disturbing. If you want to find out more, here's a good article on it.