White House Explains Obama's Flip-Flop On Signing Statements

The White House defended President Barack Obama’s use of a so-called "signing statement" for the fiscal year 2011 budget compromise even though candidate Obama said in 2008: “We’re not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress.”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that back in 2008 Obama, meant the president should not abuse signing statements--not that he was against ever using signing statements.

“He never said he was opposed to all signing statements,” Carney told reporters on Monday. “We’ve pointed to numerous statements in the campaign where he made clear that every president must maintain the right, of course, must maintain the right, to have signing statements, to raise constitutional concerns or objections about the laws passed by Congress that he signs into law.”

Obama’s signing statement was in response to provisions in the budget compromise, reached on April 9 between Obama and congressional leaders, that dealt with funding of four White House “czars,” a provision to block funding for transferring terror suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay prison inside the United States, and to transferring Gitmo detainees to other countries.

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