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Tony Snow laughed at me today in the White House briefing room after I asked him a question inspired by John Yoo’s vigorous defense, in an op-ed in last Sunday’s NY Times, of the Supreme Leader style of government that Mr. Yoo helped fashion when he worked in Bush’s Justice Department for two years after the 9/11 attacks. Here’s the exchange that Tony and I had today:
Me: On Sunday, former deputy assistant attorney general John Yoo said, in an op-ed in the NY Times, that, “The White House has declared that the Constitution allows the president to sidestep laws that invade his executive authority. That is why Mr. Bush has issued hundreds of signing statements—more than any previous president—reserving his right not to enforce unconstitutional laws.”And my question is, why doesn’t the president veto laws that he thinks are unconstitutional?
Tony smiled broadly as he began his answer:
You haven’t been around here much, have you? This is a question we’ve done many times, so, for those of you who’ve heard it before, you may resume your crossword puzzles.Um, the fact is that signing statements are designed not to evade the law but to look for constitutional ways to do them. Furthermore, the number of signing statements is about equal to Bill Clinton’s. What’s happened is, the number of provisions that have been cited have been a little more numerous. This is actually something that presidents in the past have done if they think that the methods—you’ve got to go back and look, Helen—the number of statements—and one of the things also is that what has happened in this administration is rather than writing vague signing statements and saying “we disagree with this,” we’ve spelled out the provisions precisely. And I would invite anybody to go back and start comparing and contrasting, and you will find that the characterizations are the same, except that we’ve been more precise in trying to identify which things we think need remediation. Also, the signing statements are designed to say, “this is the way in which we will interpret it so that we preserve the intent of Congress, preserve the intent of the law, and at the same time, preserve what we think is the proper Constitutional balance. So, who was John Yoo deputy assistant attorney general for?
Me: Um, President Bush.
Tony: OK. Was he really?
Other reporters: Yeah, yeah. The architect.
Tony: Wow. He was the architect of this….WOW! This is great! In any event, uh…boy, I stepped in that one, didn’t I? (laughter) Uh, but the fact is that the theory here all along has been that you don’t do it to evade your constitutional obligations, but, in fact, to meet them.
Me: But isn’t it the Supreme Court that’s supposed to decide whether laws are unconstitutional or not?
Tony: No, as a matter of fact the president has an obligation to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. That is an obligation that presidents have enacted through signing statements going back to Jefferson. So, while the Supreme Court can be an arbiter of the Constitution, the fact is the President is the one, the only person who, by the Constitution, is given the responsibility to preserve, protect, and defend that document, so it is perfectly consistent with presidential authority under the Constitution itself.
So, Tony laughed at me for being out of touch, and then he didn’t know who John Yoo was. The funny thing is, Yoo is so proud of his accomplishments that he doesn’t feel the need to obfuscate the way Tony does, who can’t help bedecking the fasces of totalitarianism with the garlands of liberal democracy. That’s why the Yoo quote sounded to Tony like an attack on Bush. I’m only sorry that I didn’t ask Tony what the difference between “sidestepping” and “evading” is.
Holy crap. Is there video of this?
I don’t know, but wouldn’t “support” imply “preserve, protect, and defend?”
US Constitution:
Article VI
All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
Please tell me this is a parody.
They are eviscerating our Constitution by redefining the words to mean the opposite of their plain meaning. There is no hell hot enough for these people.
nougatmachine: CSPAN covers the briefings, so Eric might be on camera. Sometimes you can’t hear the questions, though, just the answers. The White House has its own camera installed in the ceiling, so they no doubt have the exchange on tape. Maybe we could ask for a copy.
Article VI. – Debts, Supremacy, Oaths
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution;
—–
US Senate Oath
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
—–
US House Oath
“I, (name of Member), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
—–
Has Tony ever *read* the document he’s citing?
Has Bush?
Clearly the GOP Congress isn’t that interested in living up to their oaths.
I wish I was more confident that the Democrats would be more dilligent…
I must say…I have no freakin’ idea what it was Snow Job was saying in that last paragraph.
Utterly unintelligible.
Jason
Wow. He doesn’t know who Yoo is.
I thought I couldn’t be amazed any more. Wow.
I am reminded of Fulbright’s phrase, “The arrogance of power…”
i wonder if people will read this lackadaisical, offhanded sort of destruction of the founding document of all of our laws and think “you know, the crazies on the liberal websites were spot-on, years ago, and have been this whole time. they ARE fascists!”
somehow i doubt it.
at least these guys are making it as blatant as possible that we’re at war for the soul of our country.
Michael Connoly: Yeah, it’s intrinsically stupid, plus the White House press office intern in charge of press clippings is gonna have a bad day.
melior,
Language control is a major mind control technique. Conservatives figured out long ago that they cannot win an honest debate. I believe the guy who wrote “Dead Right” even admitted that. Issue after issue the American people disagree with them. They know that. They have always had more money and that didn’t help them either. So, if you will look back – creeping along in the 80s and taking off when Newt came up with his “GOPAC” memo – they have been deploying mind control techniques. I am not saying they had a meeting and decided to do this but the sum of their tactics amounts to mind control. The GOPAC memo wasn’t about convincing people of their views; it was about manipulating people’s minds.
This may sound tin foil but if you look back and study how cults operate you will see that is what they are doing. The demonization of information sources which disagree with their cult world view has been huge. The right will only trust approved sources. It doesn’t matter what is reported, truth plays no role. If FOX, Rush or Moon’s WT doesn’t OK it, they won’t believe it. This is a form of information control, another major technique in mind control. You ever listen to “Christian” radio? Hundreds of stations teaching an alternate and false reality, million sucked in daily. Rush has conditioned them 3 hours a day, five days a week for 15 years, feeding them a steady diet of lies and half truths. Koresh did not talk to his cult that much.
Here’s a good example of what I mean by half truths. The right, the blowhard O’reily constantly moans about George Soros funding the liberal causes. Do you think O’riley has ever mentioned to his manipulated followers that Sun Myung Moon has funded, guided and molded the new right’s world view with billions of dollars – Moon’s money btw, much it he swindled from the Japanese. Read about here: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/8/9/13513/46197
The point is, if you were fed a constant diet of lies and half truths you to would want to hang George Soros as O’Reily has called for also. You ever mention something like the Republican Party’s phone jamming of the Democrats get out the vote effort in NH to a conservative? They have no idea; they are filled with misinformation and half the story.
The right no longer has any sense of proportion. Their leaders can lie and lie us into wars, steal elections, promote torture, and in general take the nation and the world to a very dark place but Clinton lied about a Blow Job so all is equal.
Former members of Moon’s organization say they were taught what is called “Heavenly Deception” which means it is OK to lie to save the world for Moon/God. Conservatives do the same thing but it is to save the world for their conditioned and warped view of the world. Just like cult members and Moon followers, it is not the grunts fault, they are conditioned.
The Path to 911 with its documented misinformation and outright falsehoods is an example of this quote from Orwell’s 1984. This is what is going down and nothing on the horizon will stop it. Liberals have not invested in journalistic and media infrastructure; they have no way to get out information consistently. They have some successes and the blogs help get the word to the base but think about it, why are these people still in power? Makes no rational sense.
From Orwell – might as well be talking about the Path to 911 or most any Limbaugh lie fest.:
“He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.”
The future of our nation is bleaker than most suspect. What I speak of here is actually a huge national security problem as we can see around us, if we look.
Bush was asked about Gore’s lawsuit to count the Florida Votes just before Thanksgiving, 2000.
He said, “The PRESIDENT determines what laws are Constitutional’.
I wrote online, ‘This man should be disqualified from holding office, give it to Gore, at least he understands how our government is supposed to work.’
Here we are, five disasterous years later. Democracy is dead and our Constitution is toilet paper. Arrest Bush and his gang. Gads.
Eric, Lets not quibble about what really transpired here tonight. This was a breakout moment for you – you may want to consider hiring a publicist/agent to fully flesh it out. We could jump right on that whole “dumb like a fox/backwoods reporter” thing and take it all the way to the top. I see you in a kind of Lyle Lovett mixed with Armani getup (strictly talking attire only here, you’ve got much better hair) laid back, understated but very cutting edge.
(Bravo, good job)
Interesting. Snow is ignorant of 200 years (plus or minus) of constitutional law- Marbury v. Madison. Yes he makes an oblique reference to it, but it is clear he doesn’t understand the case. More imortantly in citing Jefferson, he forgets that President Jefferson accpeted the ruling of Marbury v. Madison.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/briefings/
I thought Yoo’s article was a parody too.
I liked the part where once again Americans are confused by what they see on TV ( but not on FOXnews, presumably). In Yoo’s example we are confused because TV misportrays the president as having great powers, while in the usual vague confusion Bushites create; meanwhile, he paradoxically argues that not only does the president have all these powers but brags on Bush using them.
Yoo also makes no bones about these powers being unrelated to wartime as he also brags on their use in refusing to reveal the participants, discussions, advice, decisions, actions and consequences of Cheney’s ‘energy task force’ of early 2001 (followed quickly by the sabotaging for profit of california’s energy supply).
Yoo says that the President is the only elected official “accountable to the nation as a whole” as his argument for why the president may keep his activities secret and thus not be accountable to anyone, let alone the nation as a whole.
The entire piece contradicts itself throughout as it boasts of Bush’s law-breaking. This boasting of the ugly facts is what my friend calls “hiding behind the truth” — Trumpet one ugly truth loudly and boastfully to drown out an uglier truth. Here the truth being bruitted is that Bush “sidesteps” the law through signings or in secret, deciding on his own what he’d like the law to be because that is his right and his obligation to the people.
The underlying worse truth, or one of them for example, is that despite his having assumed all these powers, to torture, to hold without charges, evidence or trial, to spy on citizens, etc. have resulted in an endless three year war wherein the US has not even been able to control the capital city of the nation it invaded — despite Yoo’s claim that “The president has better access to expertise from the unified executive branch — including its top secret data — than the more ad hoc information Congress develops through hearings and investigations ” (and this far superior intelligence got the US into Iraq by being sure there were WMD there).
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/briefings/
topazz,
ha.
Tony was kind of impressed, though, since he approached me afterwards and asked me who I was. Or maybe he just wanted to add me to the enemies list.
Eric
The ironic thing is that Snow is right in a way. It is true that all branches of government are responsible for making decisions about the constitutionality of legislation and its manner of implementation. Where the rubber hits the road on disagreements is in the Supreme Court. Signing statements in no way bind the court although they certainly can influence the bureaucracy in the way it looks at things.
Mr. Snow is correct to observe that different administrations have regularly taken exception to legislation that might infringe unconstitutionally on executive authority. For example, the War Powers Act of 1973 was enacted over a presidential veto. To my knowledge, no president has ever formally accepted the Act as a constitutional restriction of presidential authority even though many presidents have informally complied with the Act to avoid an unnecessary constitutional showdown or crisis. The enactment of a law, with or without a presidential veto, does not assure its constitutional validity, and no president is obligated to comply with a law that violates the Constitution even if he or a predecessor had signed the bill into law. If not for the current Attorney General’s rather peculiar view of the Constitution, this would truly be a non-issue. Even so, the President’s signing statements are merely expressions of his administration’s view of the Constitution, which are ultimately nonbinding on the courts and Congress.
What distinguishes Bush from other presidents who used signing statements is that he apparently uses them as justification for breaking laws. Presidents have two legitimate options for challenging laws: the veto and the courts. They have a third option of attempting to persuade Congress to fix whatever the president thinks is broken. Simply disregarding the law isn’t a legitimate option: we may as well not have a Congress and courts if the president has the right to do as he pleases without recourse to either of the other branches. It’s fine to disagree with a law on principle, but it isn’t fine to simply disregard it. Veto it, get it amended or take it to court.
Not so, Weldon. The President can refuse to enforce any law he believes to be unconstitutional. The beneficiary of the law might seek to require enforcement by court order, or the Congress might try to force the issue by other means (e.g., through the budget process or possibly in an impeachment proceeding like the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson for his removal of his Secretary of War Stanton contrary to the Tenure-In-Office Bill). But the President does not have to enforce any law that he believes violates the Constitution, such as the Tenure-In-Office Bill. The War Powers Act is a classic example of a law that no President has regarded as constitutional and that no President has followed. The law was enacted over a presidential veto, yet no President accepts the restrictions as constitutional.
I don’t think that’s quite correct. Asserting a right isn’t the same thing as having a right.
As for the War Powers Act, it’s true that every president subject to it says it’s unconstitutional, but isn’t it also true that every president accused of violating it claims not to have done so? So at the same time as they argue it’s unconstitutional, none of them have challenged it and when accused of violating it, they argue that they’re abiding by it. As far as I know, the courts have ducked the question.
It’s not a right, but a responsibility, for the President to uphold and defend the constitution. That responsibility arguably includes refusing to enforce unconstitutional laws. For a more brief discussion of the uses of presidential signing statements, see this Justice Department memorandum addressed to the counsel for the President.
To: VictoryNewHampshire@VictoryNH.com, From: kid_keenan@yahoo.com
The Constitution Proceeds My Being – My Response to Rove
I come from Nixon’s old congressional district and as God is my Fuhrer believe that:
We are in a state of constitutional crisis. For Rumsfeld to lobby on intelligence reform and now have military acts off the books means that
the “linchpin” of the constitution, the taxing and spending powers of Congress, of raising standing armies, has now been violated. My
Congressman David Dreier now has no way to effect neither my Liberty nor my Republic.
Our constitution was specifically designed to avoid this combination of the President’s office with the Defense Department; that the King shall not have his own standing army to send willy-nilly to wherever he thinks he has the pleasure too. The appointment of a sitting General to an executive position – the CIA – only consolidates this dangerous process
that is under play.
The basis for this power grab, the claim of inherent power of the president, has already been settled under Nixon’s attempt during the
so-called Vietnam War. As Nixon’s assistant attorney general Rehnquist made the argument of inherent power to wiretap the White Panther Party without a warrant – during a war. This power, which was claimed to be held, under the President’s Oath of Office, was rejected by the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision against suspending all or parts of the Constitution.
Because this was Rehnquist’s argument as assistant attorney general he had to recuse himself from his very first decision after being appointed to the Supreme Court and rightly so. And guess what? America was
still standing in the morning after this and Nixon’s resignation avoiding his impeachment. This is in spite of a average of 6 bombings a day, 86 killed policemen, and a record 33,604 thousand injuries between the fall of 1969 and spring of 1970 by our own citizens protesting over the illegal invasion of Cambodia. Not to mention the response and statistics to the the duration of the Vietnam war.
That is why I can never believe the neo-cons or Alitos et al., claims to absolute presidential power as Commander-and-Chief even during war.
Unfortunately, old Rehnquist conveniently ignored this when he reviewed his history of the power of the President during war. He brings up WWI and WWII in this review. But, for some reason, he completely skips how
his “inherent” argument on presidential power was slapped down by the Supreme Court during the undeclared, illegal and immoral so-called
Vietnam War.
This is bald face intellectual dishonesty, if not outright historical revisionism, that completely belies the important decision on the
necessity of War – not to mention the young lives thrown willy-nilly into harm’s way. And so much for a responsible versus an irresponsible debates Mr. Bush but the Constitution proceeds my being.
This missing history is more reason why I completely reject the neo-con’s medieval thesis that constitutional government is too weak to
survive in a difficult world and that we should defer to a sole sovereign power since 9/11. In all we have become weaker since taking on this post 9/11 repeat of Rehnquist’s “in terrorem” position. (I would like to read his memo on the subject of presidential power and the invasion of Cambodia but alas that memo has disappeared, nowhere to be found on the Internet. The persuasive force of his ideas no longer count I can only suppose). I only fear that our new Supreme Court Justices Roberts and Alito will take what was a tragedy we survived and turn a repeated claim of 17th century inherent power into a farce that destroys the sheet anchor of our Republic – our precious Constitution – along with the Bill of Rights.
I would rather throw Bush overboard than our Constitutional and Fundamental Rights. The Sovereign People have thrown Lieberman overboard and now hold an even keel. This is just the beginning!
I am Citizen Michael John Keenan.
Live Free or Die!
Rehnquists memo is now posted at the DOD.
PubliusToo,
The bottom line is that in many cases, I disagree with the President’s opinion of what is or is not constitutional.
For example, I don’t think that he has a constitutionally protected right to torture.
Eric:
Was this at a gaggle? The WH posted nothing for 9/22 on their press briefings at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/briefings/
I’d love to be able to show the official transcript to some halfway-reasonable wingers.
snabby,
It was the Friday morning gaggle. The White House did record it, and we’ve requested an official transcript, but so far with no response. The White House usually doesn’t provide transcripts of the gaggles unless they take place outside of Washington.
Thanks, Eric. I don’t imagine they’ll be too motivated to document what a scary ignoramus Pony Blow really is, but we can hope.
snabby,
They turned us down. Weldon said the reply from the press office was two words: “internal only.”
Our public servants at work.
Roundup: October 26
Crooks and Liars
HOLY CRAP: Otisolatry Down Under…Chuck Norris does not understand irony…Relics For Sale…slacktivist reads ‘Left Behind’…Killing Gays is Good
The Satirical Political Report: Rush Limbaugh claims FDR faked poli…
[...] is Atrios), defending the president’s “signing statements” and responding to this question: [...]