Just one more bit of hypocrisy out of the Obamabots, who a year ago labeled Bush’s use of signing statements to be a threat to our entire system of government.

President Barack Obama signed a $410 billion spending bill Wednesday that includes thousands of pet projects inserted by lawmakers, even as he unveiled new rules to restrict such so-called earmarks.

At the same time, after Democrats criticized former President George W. Bush's signing statements, Mr. Obama issued one of his own, declaring five provisions in the spending bill to be unconstitutional and nonbinding, including one aimed at preventing punishment of whistleblowers.

Now three points here that are quite important:

1) This is a spending bill, and spending is a power granted explicitly to Congress, not the Executive. On what basis, therefore, can Obama claim the right to ignore the clearly expressed budgeting directives of Congress, as his new policies claim to do.

2) Is it fair to say now that Barack Obama has come out in favor of punishing whistleblowers, given his rejection of the provision to prohibit just that?

3) Why are signing statements right when done by Bush, but not when done by Obama?

And remember these quotes from the past.

In a 2007 letter to a constituent, Senator Obama said, "The President can veto a bill or sign it into law, but the Constitution does not grant him authority to determine when he can ignore those he signs."

In a 2007 interview, Senator Obama said, "it is a clear abuse of power to use such statements as a license to evade laws that the president does not like", and "I will not use signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law.

In a 2008 campaign event, when asked, "Do you promise not to use Presidential signage to get your way?", candidate Obama said "Yeah" and added that "We're not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress."

I guess that just makes this "Change We Can Believe In".