Telling statements

There he goes again, as the late President Reagan might have said about his fellow Republican now in the Oval Office. President Bush signed the routine Postal Service bill passed by Congress last year, but then he added one of his umpteen "signing statements." This one seems to turn on its head a basic protection of mail privacy.

The particular statement means little, since federal law and U.S. Postal Service policy give law enforcement agencies the authority to inspect suspicious mail, to protect the public and postal workers. Bush's signing statement, appended to the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, reserves to the executive branch the right to open first-class mail without a warrant. Postal Vice President Tom Day says Bush "is not exerting any new authority." At worst, his signing statement seems to be an attempt at executive chest thumping, sticking a thumb in the eye of Congress simply because he could.

Still, it is aggravating that the president persists at issuing the signing statements. Presidents generally have used them sparingly and often to comment on a law or give executive agencies guidance on how to carry out a measure. Bush's habit has been to issue them liberally, more than all other chief executives combined. Further, the administration is apt to word the statements to reverse or ignore a law the president has just signed, as with a law outlawing certain forms of torture against those in U.S. custody.

There is no evidence that the White House is using the signing statements to break the law -- even though it would be prudent for the American Civil Liberties Union to press ahead with a formal request to determine if the administration has already opened mail secretly. In any event, Bush's repeated resorting to the statements mocks the law-making process and stokes a paralyzing partisanship that has gripped Washington.