No doubt, President Barack Obama’s use of signing statements — most recently to disregard a provision of the 2011 spending bill which defunded four of his so-called “czars” — goes against statements he made during the 2008 campaign.
But when Bush administration alumni start faulting Obama for using signing statements, it gets a bit tough to let that criticism fly by.
So here’s Brad Blakeman, a former deputy assistant to President George W. Bush, appearing on the Fox News channel this afternoon, where he criticized the White House for “trying to bamboozle the deal that the Republicans and the Democrats came together and that the President blessed that he would sign” and lamented that a deal could be “changed by the flick of a president’s pen.”
“He’s using an unconstitutional method — that he said — in a signing statement to uphold the unconstitutional appointment of these czars which are not subject to Senate confirmation. So he’s doing the exact opposite of what he promised as candidate Obama,” Blakeman said.
Video below.
