Nem todos os obamas de Obama fazem felizes os obamófilos: episódio (62) – Obama vs Bush - uma diferença retórica?

Mr Obama has occasionally resorted to a tactic favoured by his predecessor, George W. Bush, that enraged the left and earned criticism from Mr Obama himself when he was running for president: the signing statement, a sort of declaration of principles issued when a president signs a bill into law. Although these have been around since the early 19th century, Mr Bush used them like a line-item veto, identifying portions of laws he did not intend to enforce. Mr Obama has done the same, albeit far less often, arguing that Congress has no right to tell him what to do with the prisoners America is holding at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, for instance.


Mr Obama’s administration has also mimicked Mr Bush’s refusal to hand over documents to congressional investigators, on the grounds that the internal deliberations of the executive branch are privileged. It is thought to have drafted at least one secret Bush-like memo, awarding the president sweeping powers in the war on terror. Eric Holder, the attorney-general, has asserted that under certain circumstances the government, without any sort of judicial process, has the right to assassinate American citizens plotting attacks against their own country, even though Mr Obama as a candidate was unwilling to countenance detaining or wiretapping such people without a judge’s approval.

In fact, argues Mark Rozell of George Mason University, the difference between Mr Obama’s view of the president’s powers and Mr Bush’s is largely rhetorical. Mr Bush, along with his vice president, Dick Cheney, made explicit their desire to restore to the presidency the clout they felt it had lost in the 1970s after the Watergate scandal, Mr Obama meanwhile speaks of respect for constitutional niceties.

Larry Tribe, a former professor of Mr Obama’s and subsequent legal adviser, considers this unfair. The president did push Congress, he notes, to give defendants more rights in the military tribunals Mr Bush originally set up by executive order, and has continued to enforce laws he finds objectionable, such as the Defence of Marriage Act, which bars the federal government from recognising gay marriage. Increasingly, however, the exigencies of office seem to be trumping the legal qualms of the campaign trail—something Mr Obama’s supporters will regret when a future Republican president perfects the dodges he is pioneering.

«W’s apprentice», Economist May 18th 2013