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Yep, I've heard this argument too. Close, but no cigar. W can't have it both ways. I elected him based on his promise to 'restore integrity to the White House.'

The 'Bush 2004' bumper sticker that I scraped off the back of my pickup said 'Morality. Integrity. [something else...I forgot].'

SOMEONE should have stopped this lunacy before it became law. We could argue all day about whether it is the Supreme Court's 'duty' to decide the Constitutionality of laws. I would argue that that wasn't the framer's intention, and FDR corrupted that, but that's another story.

We Americans love to nail people who break promises or show sanctimony -- it makes us feel like we're not so bad. For that reason alone I think Bush will take some heat on this one. The FIRST Amendment is one of the things people die for. I don't think my characterization is over the top at all.

Thanks for the kind words, too.

It just seems plain to me that if the legislation was something conservatives liked, there wouldn't be no hollerin' about constitutionality and whether or not Dubya had "abandoned" same! For example, if Clinton had been presented with a bill outlawing partial birth abortion and he said, well, I'm not signing it BECAUSE IT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL---our side would be livid and protesting that it wasn't his place, nor did he have the authority, and further it was a violation of separation of powers doctrine, for Bubba to even think that he could DETERMINE what is and is not constitutional. "Let the courts rule on it!!" would have been the battle cry. "Let the people have their day in court!!"

Yes, again, of course Bubba, as any president, could have an opinion on the matter and he could consult with legions of lawyers and scholars (or not). But (setting aside your argument re FDR) in our system of government it is the judiciary that interprets the Constitution in binding decisions. Opponents would be screaming--and rightly, I think---that Bubba should send the law up the judicial pipeline, not give some bogus, extra-constitutional humma-humma about how he thinks---HE THINKS---the bill is unconstitutional.

The protection for us little people, as I have already pointed out, is that, especially if the law is grossly, flagrantly violative of constitutional guarantees, a judge will stay its operation. If it's not a close question---IOW, if even the courts find it a difficult case to analyze---then what would that say about a president's unwillingness to make the constitutional call? Do you want to accord every president, even the Bubbas, the prescience to divine what the Supreme Court would say in every case?

I stand by my view that Bush's signing CFR hardly constitutes "abandonment" of the Constitution. And again, if CFR is as bad as many here think, it's unlikely it will EVER go into effect. It'll be stayed all the way through appeals and then killed.

P.S. I had a "Bush/Quayle" sticker on my rattletrap you-know-how-many years ago and some little nitwit at the Honda place took it upon himself to remove it "for" me when I took the car in for service.