Apparently not.
This is going to be short and sweet, and to the point.
And, in full admission, is meant to serve as a quick pushback to a Front Page story that seemingly jumped the gun yesterday, entitled "Obama to issue signing statement on Guantanamo restrictions".
In that diary, I took issue with the headline and somewhat overly broad claim that was based loosely on available facts. There was cause for concern.
And that concern has now apparently been confirmed.
Via ThinkProgress:
President Obama will likely not issue a signing statement asserting his constitutional authority to bypass a recent congressional action barring him from bringing Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. for trial. Instead, Obama will strongly criticize the ban, but stop short of setting up a bypass, which would be an unprecedented assertion of executive authority over the Congress.
Historians would have to confirm whether that last line, that it would be unprecedented, is true. Seems to me the last President did a pretty good job of flipping Congress the finger. But maybe they're talking about the specific ends for which the finger is/would be being flipped to Congress.
The "unprecedented" claim aside, it seems it won't be done anyway.
So, this type of stuff (h/t Chacounne) can continue if nobody's watching.
Thankfully, at least somebody is.
Not that I've seen any reports of it being corrected. But, I digress.
To quote The NY Times piece cited by ThinkProgress specifically (it's a pretty short story):
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s aides, confronting a bill that places new restrictions on the transfer of Guantánamo detainees, are likely to recommend that Mr. Obama sharply criticize the limitations when he signs the legislation, a White House official said.
But the current draft of a statement that Mr. Obama may issue when he signs the legislation — a major defense bill that also authorizes billions of dollars for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — does not assert that he has the constitutional authority to lawfully bypass federal statutes containing such limits on transferring military detainees, the official said.
Instead, the draft suggests that the president would seek to reverse the provisions legislatively, or let them expire in September, at the end of the current fiscal year.
[...]
Whatever his aides recommend, the decision about the wording of any signing statement is ultimately up to Mr. Obama. He is expected to sign the defense authorization bill in the next few days.
The buck stops...