WTF?

One of the (many) things that bother me about Shrub is his extensive use of signing statements to gut bills coming out of Congress (just veto the damn things, dickhead!) But this post on White House Briefing, at WaPo, just baffles me. The snippets dont even make sense (of course, why we'd expect sense out of these moronic jerks is a different issue) and don't seem to bear any relation to what they reference:

Another One!

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Deb Riechmann writes for the Associated Press: "President Bush on Wednesday signed a homeland security bill that includes an overhaul of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and $1.2 billion for fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border to stem illegal immigration.

"Standing before a mountainous backdrop in Arizona, a state that has been the center of much debate over secure borders, Bush signed into law a $35 billion homeland security spending bill that could bring hundreds of miles of fencing to the busiest illegal entry point on the U.S.-Mexican border."

Here's the text of Bush's remarks at the bill signing. "This is a good bill," he said, in his brief remarks.

But what neither Riechmann nor Bush bothered to mention was that, when the cameras were no longer running, Bush issued another signing statement , 1,078 words long and objecting to a slew of the bill's provisions.

As usual, it's not entirely clear what Bush's objections really mean, or what effect they'll have. And as usual, no one bothered to ask anyone at the White House why they couldn't have taken a more up-front approach, and either worked with Congress to resolve their differences or vetoed the bill.

So many of the questions I raised about signing statements on NiemanWatchdog.org in June are still unanswered.

And what precisely was Bush objecting to? A lot of it seems awfully petty.

Here's the text of the bill in question.

Says the signing statement: "To the extent that provisions of the Act, such as section 558, purport to direct or burden the conduct of negotiations by the executive branch with foreign governments or other entities abroad, the executive branch shall construe them as advisory. Such provisions, if construed as mandatory rather than advisory, would impermissibly interfere with the President's constitutional authorities to conduct the Nation's foreign affairs, participate in international negotiations, and supervise the unitary executive branch."

All section 558 requires is that the administration designate three foreign seaports to pilot a scanning system for containerized cargo that includes nonintrusive imaging equipment and radiation detection equipment.

Says the signing statement: "The executive branch shall construe provisions of the Act relating to race, ethnicity, and gender, such as sections 623 and 697 of the Act, in a manner consistent with the requirement of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution to afford equal protection of the laws."

But all section 623 does is establish a graduate-level Homeland Security Education Program for senior government officials, and ask the administrator of the program to "take reasonable steps to ensure that the student body represents racial, gender, and ethnic diversity."

Similarly, all section 697 requires is that the government create a registry of businesses willing to perform disaster or emergency relief activities -- and that the registry note, among other things, whether the business is a small business owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, women, or service-disabled veterans

Someone explain to me how the last three paragraphs relate to life as we know it! It's just gibberish.