Posted on 03/24/2002 11:37:17 PM PST by TLBSHOW
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (Reuters) -
President Bush (news - web sites) said on Sunday he would sign landmark campaign finance reform legislation with only a slight hesitation, reflecting his ongoing concerns about the measure.
"I won't hesitate" signing it, Bush said at a joint news conference with Salvadoran President Francisco Flores as the president wrapped up a four-day trip to Latin America. "It will probably take about three seconds to get to the W, I may hesitate on the period, and then rip through the Bush."
The legislation to reduce the influence of money in politics won final congressional approval last week, and Bush has pledged to sign it soon.
The bill would ban unlimited contributions known as "soft money" to national political parties, limit such donations to state and local parties and restrict broadcast ads by outside groups shortly before elections.
Former independent counsel Kenneth Starr, whose investigation of Bill Clinton's sex life resulted in the president's impeachment in 1998, is to lead a legal challenge that will seek to knock down most of the measure as unconstitutional.
Bush said he felt the campaign bill did not fully address the need to require identification of who is funding so-called independent groups that introduce "scurrilous, untrue" television advertisements in the last days of a campaign, as he said happened to him in his 2000 presidential campaign.
"I've always thought that people who pump money into the political system, we ought to know who they are," he said.
Bush said that nonetheless the "bill is a better bill than the current system," but that some parts of it might not stand up to a court challenge.
...strictly out of curiosity... if the bill is signed, and then the Supremes rule those unconstitutional parts as as unconstitutional, what part of the bill will remain?
Will that part be to the liking of those who originally crafted that piece of $#%&?
I'm just guessing here, or perhaps just hoping, but it could turn out to be a knife in the crook's backs if their bill gets reduced only to the constitutional parts. That's why I am curious to see what won't get struck down.
It could backfire big-time on the authors of the original piece of $#!t. I wonder if there are any lawyer-types out there who could predict what this bill will look like once it is gutted of its foul parts... and what effect the reborn bill will then have?
Former president Bush sr. lost an election for one reason, and one reason alone. He offended the American public by breaking his "read my lips, no new taxes" promise....Even with the Gulf war in his back pocket.
George W. is about to break his promise to not sign any CFR bill that violated certain principles.
Thats not a good thing.
Bush's signing the Bill, removes entirely , the ability of his opponents to hang him on vetoing / stoping it. It's a knife in their backs ; a double whammy.
Im just amazed that he won't back off of it since its soo unpopular with Conservatives.
Yes, X41 lost because enough morons were stupid enough to think that a Dem woudn't screw them into the ground, sell / give away the vast majority of our state secrets, and ignore , TOTALLY the classified info that permitted 9/11/01 to happen undeterred. I guess that you haven't learned that lesson either. YOU DON'T GUVE A DAMN WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR COUNTRY AND TO YOUR FELLOW CITIZENS.
You don't read what I type, so can the hyperbolic bloviation. Your entreaty is about as sincere as Yasar Arafat's claims that he isn't in any way responsuble for the detahs if the inncent Israelis. You can't refute what I say, so you pull this ploy ? You aren't fooling anyone; least of all me.
gwb, the all-time KING of hard-money, knows for a fact that the doubling and future indexing of hard-money limits will stand
he probably thinks there's a good chance that part or all of the soft-money limits will be struck down, but it's no big deal either way, money always flows around all obstacles, and new spill-ways are being thought up as we type, and the whole cfr exercise is largely useless
now, i could do without the tariffs on steel and lumber, and cfr, most of fat ted's eddykashun bill, and this and that and the other thing, and probably ten more things in the next couple of years, but taken overall, gwb's more or less as advertised, and considering ANY 'rat alternative, he's a veritable demi-god
honesty and integrity, tax cuts and the inclination to cut more taxes, and the brass to fight a war without asking the u.n. for permission covers a multitude of sins
unfortunately, to some, the only acceptable candidate would be themselves
it's the big stuff that counts, and two years from now cfr will be long forgotten by virtually everyone, including his "base"
This is the exact same argument the Dems were using to keep people from voting for Ralph Nader: a vote for Nader = a vote for Bush.
And it's people swallowing this argument that will always keep the Republicrats in charge and thus the government bigger and bigger, and our freedoms fewer and fewer.
If daddy Bush's signature on the tax hike had gotten run through the Supreme Court by the executive branch and had been selectively snipped by the court rulings until the end effect was a tax cut, then Daddy Bush would have been commended for a brilliant tactical move. The problem was that the the dem's tax hike went right through and was not opposed or altered. It was allowed to stand as a concession.
I don't know what the bill is going to look like after the executive branch challenges it in court, but I bet the administration knows darn well what it should look like after the ruling, asuming the justices will see the obvious and predictably rule. If the constitutionality is obvious, then the ruling should be predictable to the executive branch since it knows exactly what parts they are going to challenge, effectively allowing the executive to legislate through cut-and-paste selective reengineering of the bill. Like my opponents in chess, those who created the bill in effect may find themselves trapped by their own short-sightedness.
Or maybe not and Bush has wimped out. I don't know, to be blunt... using the court to trap your opponent in such a way is not something I would have thought of doing. I would have simply not signed the thing and then just suffer through the inevitable accusations of supporting big money, etc, in elections. But then, I'm not a world class chess player; nor a world class lawyer. The Bush team on the other hand is stocked very well with world class legal strategists. These are not your Democrat-style lawyers who got through law school by snorting crack with the professor or by wearing kneepads while serving as interns.
I'm betting that you know no more about the end result of the court rulings than I do. And both of us together know less of the ultimate outcome than do the lawyers who are about to fight it out in the courts. That they are planning to fight suggests that they have a plan already in motion. I'm more inclined to believe that the only thing libs have on their side is the relentless corruptibility of human nature. The thing conservatives have on their side is a wealth of experience and the habit of meticulous planning and judicious risk-taking. In the short run the corrupt guys make advances; in the long run the guy who can think outside of the box and who can predict his opponent's moves even before his oponent thinks of them, is the guy who wins. But going outside of the box frays the nerves of those not privy to the plan. So when results aren't instantly obvious, people tend to prematurely mock moves they don't understand.
It doesn't matter how bad they think the bill is now, once the court starts tearing it apart it will become the single most important piece of legislation ever to have been created, or so they will say. Don't forget that they believe that soft money propelled GWB in the election, Without it, the SC would have never needed to have "selected" our new President.
The single best thing President Bush could do tomorrow is to tear the document in two and through it into the trash on national television.
Get over it ..... Bush is shooting himself in the foot with a 20mm Phalanx cannon with regards to this.
Did you see his last piece of spew?
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