Arlen Specter ups his attacks on Bush's "signing statements" one more notch

Specifically, Arlen Specter (right) -- a pretty powerful Republican in the overall scheme of things -- stated, "We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will ... authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president's acts declared unconstitutional."

Inasmuch as Specter is the Judiciary Committee Chairman in the Senate, the specter of Specter, a Republican to boot, pushing such legislation adds quite a bit of fuel to the "impeachment likelihood" (without a conviction, however) in the next Congress --if the Democrats win in the manner described in my predictions in a previous posting.

Specter's original concern dealt almost exclusively with Bush's continuing his now infamous support for the NSA electronic surveillance program which rejects a 100% historical Constitutional requirement for judicial approval of warrants before wiretapping -- which even President Bush stated to the American public were required ... before his program of ignoring the warrants was exposed.

However, the legislation that will be ready by the end of the week (according to Specter) goes much further; it takes up the overall issue of any "signing statements" that suggest that the President will ignore the Constitutional requirements in his (or her) interpretation of whatever it is he (or she) is actually signing at the time.

President Bush has made it fairly commonplace to make statements upon signing a bill that he thinks the bill is unconstitutional, unpatriotic or damages our security.

It's not a foregone conclusion that the legislation will pass. Included among those who side with President Bush on this issue, are at least one Republican Senator from Texas, the Reverend Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh, a radio talk-host.