NYT: The Rule Of Law

[impik]

To keep the Defense Department running, President Obama was forced to sign a spending bill on Friday with a particularly harmful provision that bars spending to transfer detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States for trial. As wrongheaded as this prohibition is, the president was right not to declare his intention to defy it in an accompanying statement. By doing so, he demonstrated a greater respect for the law than did President George W. Bush.

snip

Despite his objections, Mr. Obama did not say he would defy the law and try to transfer prisoners anyway. That was the right position. As a candidate, he often objected to Mr. Bush’s cavalier use of signing statements to assert that his interpretation of the law trumped that of Congress and the courts. Mr. Bush routinely and contemptuously disregarded laws that he himself signed, most famously stating that he was not bound by the ban on torturing prisoners.

The American Civil Liberties Union argues that the bill only restricts the use of Defense Department money for transferring prisoners to the United States. The administration, it argues, is free to use funds from other departments. But such a cramped reading of the law would be seen by most Americans as a defiance of Congressional intent. Taking the high ground puts President Obama in a better position to argue for the rule of law.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/08/opinion/08sat3.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha211