For someone who's only been president for half a year, he's established quite an impressive list of flip-flops on his campaign promises. Another one is his use of signing statements, which he promised to not use. Apparently, though, Dems are pushing back:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/21/house-chairs-push-back-ag_n_241945.html

House Democrats issued a warning to President Obama on Tuesday: Cool it with the signing statements.

Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, joined Rep. David Obey, chair of the Appropriations Committee, and two of their respective subcommittee chairs, to send a statement to Obama warning him that undercutting legislation they pass, makes it more difficult to corral support on close votes.

Their complaint refers to a statement Obama appended to the war supplemental, a bill that prompted stiff opposition from House Republicans, antiwar Democrats and civil-liberties advocates last month. Ultimately House leadership pushed through funding for the International Monetary Fund, tallying the necessary votes by erasing the Senate-supported detainee photo ban from the final version of the bill. But the final bill also attached strings to the IMF funding, strings that Obama's signing statement indicates he does not intend to respect.

Signing statements have been used by presidents throughout U.S. history to dissent from certain elements of a particular bill. President George W. Bush issued more than 750 during his eight years in office suggesting that he did not intend to abide by a wide variety of laws passed by Congress. By comparison, President Bill Clinton issued only 140 signing statements during his two terms. President George H.W. Bush signed 230 during his single term.

"During the previous administration, all of us were critical of the President's assertion that he could pick and choose which aspects of congressional statutes he was required to enforce. We were therefore chagrined to see you appear to express a similar attitude," the committee chairs wrote in Tuesday's letter. "[T]he policy of using signing statements to assert the right of the White House to ignore certain provisions of legislation regarding the IMF, the World Bank, and other international financial institutions may result not in the invalidation of those various provisions, but rather in insufficient Congressional support for further funding of these institutions."

Obama appended his first signing statement to the omnibus spending bill in March. During the campaign, however, he had vowed not to use signing statements once in office, saying, "We're not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress."

This is a pattern with Obama. Promise one thing, do another, and then claim that you're not really doing it, and when people call you out on it, have a small army of mindless (or amoral) defenders attack them as "haters" and "purity trolls" who engage in "poutrage". He gives every impression of being the sort of person who is not bound by core ethical beliefs, in practice at least. That doesn't necessarily make him a "bad" person, but it does make him an unethical person, which anyone who lies and backtracks as much as he does cannot avoid being seen as.

It would have been one thing had he, as a candidate, supported the policies that he's now advancing as president, more or less. But he did not. And it would have been understandable if, upon becoming president, he found that he had to adjust some of his positions in the face of political reality. All politicians do that, and it's not necessarily to their discredit. But we're not talking just a few tweaks or even reversals here and there. On one issue after another, he's done a complete reversal on policies that he didn't just endorse as candidate, but which he made the core of his campaign. No, he isn't Jekyll and Hyde--yet--but he has clearly long since passed the point at which one can believe or trust him any longer on really anything.

What Obama is, to my view, is the sort of person who is eminently comfortable saying things that he doesn't really mean, and realizes if not knows he will not adhere to. I'm not talking little white lies, but blatant and serious lies. He's also the sort of person who strikes me as being capable of actually meaning something when he says it, but taking it back in a second if it suits him, without remorse. He strikes me as the sort of person who instinctively seems to know how far he can stray from his promises, and what people are willing to tolerate, and get away with. A classic slippery charmer, which sooner or later, if he's not careful, will become his defining trait. I don't think that he realizes that he can't keep pulling this crap forever, before he gets called on it. Especially if he makes enemies within his own party as he tries to push certain agenda items.

The one saving grace that I see in this MO, more a practical than an ethical one, is that he's also a bit of a coward. People who behave this way almost always are cowards on some level--pathological lying is, of course, a form of cowardice. And when he's pushed back strongly enough, he tends to bend, even break. He was pushed on FISA by Dems who were fearful of electoral (and perhaps other) consequences, and broke. He was pushed on EFCA, and broke. He was pushed on stricter financial regulations, and broke. Of course, in most cases, he broke in a way that was bad, from a progressive point of view. But it also leads me to believe that, with enough pressure, he can also be pushed in a more progressive direction. He is, at heart, a completely political creature, and what he ends up doing is, invariably, driven much more by politics than ideology. That might be unfortunate, but it can also be made to work in our favor.

I wouldn't give up on such issues. I think he can be pushed, and broken, on them.