A Lesson in Semantics from Mr. Snow

This from CBSnews.com:

"A great many of those signing statements may have little statements about questions about constitutionality," White House spokesman Tony Snow said. "It never says, `We're not going to enact the law."

Ok, fine, but what does that mean? From what I gather, limiting executive power in any way seems to be unconstitutional under this administration. I would like to point out that Nixon claimed executive privlege on the Watergate tapes that eventually led to his resignation.

Little statements about constitutionality could mean anything, including "the executive branch is not subject to this ruling by virtue of executive privlege." That's a little statement about constitutionality that says in not quite so many words "We're not going to enact this law." So I suppose Tony Snow is telling the truth. Perhaps no signing statement says those words exactly, but from what I understand, that's usually what they imply.