The Catholics Talk Back

I can only believe that it was the Jesuits who wrote this editorial for the National Catholic Weekly. It blasts President Bush for, as the title clearly states, an "Abuse of Office." It blasts the president for approving the use of torture and, more importantly, for "single-mindedly and with strident resolve sought to expand the power of the presidency beyond its constitutional limits."

I say that this had to have been penned by the Jesuits, who normally fall more to the Left than other Catholics. If it wasn't authored by Jesuits, then this article is both too little too late and the height of hypocrisy. The Catholics were a reliable supporter of both Bush runs for the presidency, and frankly the "abuses" identified in this article were things well known before now, so coming out against the President at this late date is...you get the picture.

The author(s) also throw in the signing statement as one of the major abuses of this administration, and in doing so commit numerous errors which is all too common today--almost a cottage industry. The errors are:

• Prior to 2001 the use of the signing statement was a "largely benign instrument of presidential communication," and Bush has "used them to subvert basic constitutional procedures by declaring in his statements which provisions of a law he will enforce and which he will not." As I have noted elsewhere, there is nothing different in how Bush uses the signing statements other than volume. Those who directly preceded President Bush used the signing statement to challenge provisions of law as well as to interpret those provisions that were unclear or ambiguous.
  
• When President Bush refuses to enforce a provision because of its dubious constitutionality, he "implicitly ignores the U.S. Supreme Court's exclusive right to judge the constitutionality of a law." But as we all know too well, if you believe that the Supreme Court has an "exclusive right" to interpretation--one that the other two branches must abide by--then you disregard our system of separated powers, where each branch is "co-equal" and "coordinate."
  
• The author(s) take the statements of Senators Clinton, McCain, and Obama at face value when they either claim not to use the signing statement in the same way as President Bush (Clinton and Obama) or to not use them at all (McCain). We should expect that a President Clinton or Obama will continue to use the signing statement in the same way as each president since Reagan has used them--to reach out to important constituencies, to challenge or refuse defense of defective provisions, or to interpret those provisions that are not clear. And President McCain will break his promise the first bill he gets that contains a signing statement from his Justice Department laying out his obligation to protect the prerogatives of the presidency--or be accused of a derelict of duty.

The author(s) actually do hit on the real problem regarding the "abuses" by the Bush presidency--they write: "The president’s power gains have come at great cost to the constitutional prerogatives of the legislative and judicial branches, which have frequently acquiesced in Mr. Bush’s consolidation of power..." If the Republican-controlled Congress would have challenged the Bush administration from 2001-2006 in the same way they challenged the Clinton presidency--or somewhere close to the way they challenged Clinton, then we may have never learned about the way the Bush administration has used the signing statement, the same way we never learned about how Clinton used them (despite my best efforts). But the Republicans chose instead to be the lapdog to the president, serving his every need, which accounts for their current position in the minority. I hope that as the Democrats step up their challenges to President Bush, the press won't take President Bush's (or the Republicans in the minority) word that this "do-nothing" Congress is only concerned with driving up the polarization in American politics or is somehow not concerned with the safety of Americans from "those abroad who want to do us harm here."

Pipe dream, I know.