HAS GEORGE W. Bush come to believe he's king?That's the question that springs to mind upon reading Charlie Savage's front-page report in Sunday's Globe detailing the president's sotto voce assertion that he can disregard laws if he thinks they impinge on his constitutional powers.
That novel claim resides in the ''signing statements" the administration issues outlining its legal interpretation of laws the president has signed -- interpretations that often run contrary to the statute's clear intent.
As Savage reports, Bush has registered hundreds of those reservations, adding them to statutes on subjects ranging from military rules and regulations to affirmative action language to congressionally mandated reporting requirements to protections Congress has passed for whistle-blowers to legal assurances against political meddling in government-funded research.
Bush's position reduces to this: The president needn't execute the laws as they are written and passed, but rather, has the right to implement -- or ignore -- them as he sees fit. (Were it not for our pesky written Constitution, perhaps George II could take his cue from Charles I, dismiss Congress, and rule -- ah, govern -- without any legislative interference whatsoever.)
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/05/02/our_monarch_above_the_law/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+Op-ed+columns