In the 10.6.06 Boston Globe, the reporter Charles Savage cuts loose with yet another Bush administration outrage, this one about his use and abuse of signing statements. An earlier diary mentioned how Bush is pushing this practice to extend presidential power and to condition Congress to accept them as legitimate. Today, however, the signing statement practice has just
jumped the shark:
Congress passed the law last week as a response to FEMA's poor handling of Hurricane Katrina. The agency's slow response to flood victims exposed the fact that Michael Brown, Bush's choice to lead the agency, had been a politically connected hire with no prior experience in emergency management.
To shield FEMA from cronyism, Congress established new job qualifications for the agency's director in last week's homeland security bill. The law says the president must nominate a candidate who has ``a demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management" and ``not less than five years of executive leadership."
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Making sure that someone in a leadership position has actual qualifications for the job? Sounds reasonable to me. Probably sounds reasonable to most people. But no, Bush insists on his right to install his incompetent cronies in critical government posts:
Bush signed the homeland-security bill on Wednesday morning. Then, hours later, he issued a signing statement saying he could ignore the new [FEMA employment qualification] restrictions. Bush maintains that under his interpretation of the Constitution, the FEMA provision interfered with his power to make personnel decisions.
Damn straight it interferes with his ability to make personnel decisions! How sad and embarrassing is it that first Congress needs to legislate that qualified individuals are hired for important positions, and second that Bush takes umbrage at this? "No, I insist that even after Hurricane Katrina, I can hire unqualified individuals for htis position"?
The depth of this leader's arrogance and ego are frightening. It's tantrums like this which clearly illustrate how crazy everything's gotten.