McCain, on the other hand, said he would never use signing statements.  Why couldn't Obama have said something nice and simple like that.

What is Obama's background again.......

"I would call my attorney general in and review every single executive order issued by George Bush and overturn those laws or executive decisions that I feel violate the constitution," said Obama.

He was obviously talking about the "laws" that Bush wrote for himself through EO's (stroke of the pen, law of the land, as they say) which were a patent abuse of the system.

God, I bet if Hillary had said these exact same words, you'd be throwing rosepetals and shouting hosanna, not nitpicking.

But this subject and the really racist comments here have just gone over the line for me - I'm a lawyer, I teach, and I'm not offended by Obama's rather expansive statement about executive orders in this instance.  He's a POLITICIAN!  He's not in court, he's not writing a brief, he's making one of thousands of political speeches this year.

 He was teaching it at a highly ranked rated law school.  

 He graduated from a top law school.

 He passed the bar after graduating from a top law school.

Barack Obama told a cheering crowd at a town hall meeting in Casper today that he would restore respect for law in the White House by reviewing every executive order issued by President George W. Bush and discarding any deemed unconstitutional. Obama's comments came in response to a question from a man in the audience who said he worried that presidents sometimes consider themselves above the law.

Critics[who?] have accused presidents of abusing executive orders, of using them to make laws without Congressional approval, and of moving existing laws away from their original mandates. Large policy changes with wide-ranging effects have been effected through executive order, including the integration of the armed forces under Harry Truman and the desegregation of public schools under Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The more that tumbles out of his mouth the more convinced I am that he would be questionable as a candidate for city council.

I think that's correct.  After all, there's a new gaffe every 24 hours with this candidate.

it's probably one of those "geez, what the heck was i thinking?" moments that we all have, especially when tired and stressed.

Take what he said:

"I would call my attorney general in and review every single executive order issued by George Bush and overturn those laws or executive decisions that I feel violate the constitution," said Obama.

While I understand the intent of what he said, he left the door wide open for legitimate criticsm.

For one, in phrasing it as he did, all Obama has said here is that he's going to do the same thing Bush did, only in reverse: apply his own standards on constitutionality to legislation.  While he would have the same power as previous presidents, does he really want to flavor everything with this same kind of overblown ego-driven attitude?

Two, he says he will bring in the attorney general as part of the review, but then he ditches the AG altogether and says it will be his own decision about what is constitutional.

Anyway, how hard would it have been to say that he would task the Justice Department and the Offie of Legal Counsel to review all of the signing statments and executive orders and provide him with recommendations as to whether and which ones should be rescinded or superceded so as to best reflect Congress' original intent in the legislation passed and later signed into law.  It says "I want to fix this" without all the ego contained in the way he phrased his original remarks.  I think he needs to tread somewhat carefully, lest he be cast as someone who feels no differently about executive power than Bush did.

The BIG DEAL to me is that the question he reponsed to was to define what would he do in the first 100 days of his presidency.

Normally this type of questions are asked to see what the top priorities of a candidate are. Correct?  

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 the Democrats need a large tent to win ( / ) (#0)
by kempis

Purifying the party of the Clinton Wing, which you and other Obama-supporters seem to associate with racism, is merely, to borrow a phrase that Obama likes to use "backward looking"--as in backward to the Mondale-Dukakis coalition.

I also think the results of Oregon and Kentucky show the US still has a lot of unfinished business in terms of race relations (not a good reason by the way for me to switch support to the candidate that can deliver the white vote).

You do realize that it is just as "logical" to assume that Oregonians are more sexist than Kentuckians? After all, 65% of Oregon's men voted for Obama but an identical 65% of Kentucky's men voted for Clinton. In PA, Clinton and Obama split the male vote, 50-50....So what's up with the sexist men in Oregon? Silly argument? I agree. It's absurd. And this is exactly the sort of argument you're employing about the "racists" in KY.

The real division has much less to with race and more to do with class. And if the Democratic party still stood for the New Deal-type principles that informed the party I belonged to for 32 years, these kinds of negative stereotypes about working class whites wouldn't gain such traction. But this party no longer stands for the working class, not beyond cosmetics. I have no idea what this party stands for anymore.

Obama's problem with working class whites is not his skin color. It's his associations with Reverend Wright, Father Pfleger, and William Ayers. It's his lack of experience in national security matters. And it's obvious patronizing discomfort around working class whites.

By the way, Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law.  There's no "affirmative action" in the grading system there, and it's been a top 3 law school since before they started making lists.  Obviously, the quality of his work there was pretty high--most lawyers and law students I know would be willing to sacrifice a particularly precious and tender body part to have a MCL JD from HLS. I'd note that neither Clinton attained MCL in law school, though Bill was a Rhodes Scholar, which is pretty impressive in and of itself.  

The one thing there's really nothing to criticize Obama about is his academic record.  Didn't publish a student note in law review?  Horrors.

The President can overturn executive orders. That is what Obama is saying.

He is NOT saying he would overturn laws (or use unconstitutional signing statements like our illustrious current President).

Besides as history has told us, the current state of things will soon be forgotten because the blogosphere will snap back to where it was before all the cult nonsense.