Bush Uses Pocket Veto to Vacate Soldiers Pay Raise to Protect Iraqi Assets

Seen in the Courant:

President Bush on Friday used a “pocket veto” to reject a sweeping defense bill because he dislikes a provision that would expose the Iraqi government to expensive lawsuits seeking damages from the Saddam Hussein era.[...]

The president’s objections were focused on a provision deep within legislation that sets defense policy for the coming year and approves $696 billion in spending, including $189 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also in the legislation were improved veterans’ benefits and tighter oversight of contractors and weapons programs.

The pocket veto means that troops will get a 3 percent raise Jan. 1 instead of the 3.5 percent the bill authorized.

There are a couple of things that strike me as peculiar here.

First, Bush 43 is the president whose love of “signing statements” is infamous. Wouldn’t vacating or re-interpreting part of a law on some argument of constitutional authority be exactly the reason the White House has been making such use of signing statements? While I can appreciate taking a principled stance of refusing to sign badly-written or poorly-thought-out legislation even when there is much to be desired within it…this seems like a funny time to take that stance. If ever there were a call for a “signing statement”, it would be this bill.

Second—pocket vetoes only work when Congress isn’t in session. Congress is technically still in session, with the Senate having token meetings to block the President’s ability to make recess appointments. If these token meetings are sufficient to prevent a recess appointment, wouldn’t it also be sufficient to preclude a pocket veto?

Or, am I missing something here?