The blog called Thoughts of an Average Woman excerpts and links to a good piece outlining the problems of Bush’s overuse of “signing statements” as a way to avoid using his veto and also potentially subvert the law. News to me on this subject was that this idea became vogue under President Reagan and was prescribed by none other than “a young lawyer named Samuel Alito.”
The piece is by Sheila Seuss Kennedy from The Indianapolis Star:
As the media often note, President Bush has never used his veto. As it turns out, his administration has instead acted upon advice given to then-President Reagan by a young lawyer named Samuel Alito and simply avoided that pesky “checks and balances” thing that the Founders were so hung up on. They have used something called a “signing statement,” and it works like this: When Congress passes a bill the president doesn’t like, he goes ahead and signs it. But along with the usual (publicly distributed) press release, he issues his own “constitutional interpretation” of the legislation.
Fair enough; the president takes an oath to uphold the constitution, and if he believes legislation is unconstitutional, he is certainly entitled to say so. In the past, lacking a line-item veto, presidents have used signing statements when a questionable measure has been attached to an otherwise important bill. More recently, such statements have been used as a not-so-subtle signal to federal agencies about how their boss, the president, wants the law to be interpreted and applied. But it took George W. Bush to take signing statements to a whole new level. He has used them to justify his intention to simply ignore provisions he dislikes, turning the statements into functional equivalents of line-item vetoes –albeit with some nifty added political benefits: The tactic deprives Congress of its constitutional right to override, and keeps most voters from ever noticing.
During his first term, Bush issued such statements 108 times. As Philip Cooper, an expert on presidential powers, has written, “This tour de force has been carried out in such a systematic and careful fashion that few in Congress, the media or the scholarly community are aware that anything has happened at all.”
Kmareka.com 
To be honest, I was not aware of these “signing statements” and how our so-called Commander-In-Chief was using them in lieu of a veto to promote his right-wing agenda. But it occurs to me that, while these signing statements can certainly influence the application of the law (de facto), they do not carry the full weight of the law (de jure). Assuming we are granted a fair and independent judicial branch (something that is in jeopardy, given the nomination of Samuel Alito and the recent appointment of John Roberts to the Supreme Court), the executive branch can be held accountable–including criminally–for either failing to uphold the law as it is written or inappropriately applying the law. Of course, whether the judicial powers that be opt to respect their own signing statements (i.e., their oaths of office) or the President’s remains to be seen. Stay tuned, America.