Let's call the whole thing... something else?

When the president signed the defense authorization bill, I actually took the trouble to go through the language on indefinite detention and such in the bill and in Obama's signing statement, and couldn't find anything to be truly paranoid about. And yet the emoprog terror continues (emoprog? I just discovered the word, in a Digby post, and couldn't wait to use it). Of course I'm below amateur in reading legislation, and Glenn Greenwald is an attorney's attorney, so he should obviously know better than I do, unless--well, unless his field of vision is somewhat limited by the assumption of the prosecutorial role?

Not meant to belittle the issues under discussion, but just to make everyone very, very happy. The entire scene, with snappy dialogue and glorious singing, is available but can't be embedded.

Anyhow, I heard something on the radio [jump]

from the undeniably expert Geoffrey Stone, who said what I would have liked to be able to figure out myself and can now rephrase in my own sweet way: that the bill adds nothing but a bit of extra confusion to a legal situation that was already addled and ambiguous: asserts the continuing validity of the law as it was during the Bush administration, but nobody knows what that law was--whether Dick Cheney is in constitutional fact a war criminal or not, for instance--because it hasn't been and apparently won't be litigated, and the Congress decided they'd rather not think about that, thanks.

In this light, what really shows up in the signing statement is an understandable irritation:

I will exercise all of my constitutional authorities as Chief Executive and Commander in Chief if those procedures fall short, including but not limited to seeking the revision or repeal of provisions should they prove to be unworkable.

It is true that he doesn't say detention without trial of US citizens is illegal; merely

that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation.

But calling it illegal is not his job. And I don't mean that he doesn't have to do it if he doesn't want, I mean that as long as we don't have a clear idea what the law is, he's not even supposed to ex officio (as opposed to advocating for his own privileges vis-à-vis Congress). Little thing we call separation of powers...