Reading too much into the Jerusalem waiver

The Washington Times’  Watercooler blog may be reading a little much into the Obama administration’s routine six-month waiver of the Jerusalem Embassy Act.

Early identical memos like this have been issued every six months for the last decade. Standard procedure, no big deal, right? Well in the Bush years the memo contained the sentence,

"My Administration remains committed to beginning the process of moving our embassy to Jerusalem."

The Obama team has edited that passage out. This explains the Friday evening release. Congress should revisit the Jerusalem Embassy Act and remove the loophole that has allowed this charade to continue for ten years. Meanwhile the president should explain exactly what his policy is on this issue, and why he is not committed to beginning the process of moving the embassy.

I’m not so sure about making an issue of the Friday evening release — I know that Friday night is a dead zone for unpopular releases, but the White House staffer charged with liaising with the Jewish press blasted it to us as soon as the main press office released it, which does not suggest an effort to suppress the information. (Under Bush, the "specialty press" folks were not in the habit of rushing out controversial releases, as opposed to, say, Jewish holiday messages.) Plus, the waiver was due by today, Monday – Friday would have been the natural day to issue it.

More substantively, it is true that the Bush administration routinely included the phrase in its waivers – but not in the last waiver, dated Dec. 8 2008.

Here’s the Bush administration’s final waiver

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE

SUBJECT:      Suspension of Limitations Under the Jerusalem Embassy Act

Pursuant to the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including section 7(a) of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 (Public Law 104-45) (the "Act"), I hereby determine that it is necessary, in order to protect the national security interests of the United States, to suspend for a period of 6 months the limitations set forth in sections 3(b) and 7(b) of the Act.

You are hereby authorized and directed to transmit this determination to the Congress, accompanied by a report in accordance with section 7(a) of the Act, and to publish the determination in the Federal Register.

This suspension shall take effect after transmission of this determination and report to the Congress.

GEORGE W. BUSH

# # #
 

And here’s the Obama administration waiver from Friday

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE

SUBJECT: Suspension of Limitations Under the Jerusalem Embassy Act

Pursuant to the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including section 7(a) of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 (Public Law 104-45) (the "Act"), I hereby determine that it is necessary, in order to protect the national security interests of the United States, to suspend for a period of 6 months the limitations set forth in sections 3(b) and 7(b) of the Act.

You are hereby authorized and directed to transmit this determination to the Congress, accompanied by a report in accordance with section 7(a) of the Act, and to publish the determination in the Federal Register.

This suspension shall take effect after transmission of this determination and report to the Congress.

BARACK OBAMA

# # #

It’s exacty the same, down to the three number signs at the end.

We’re checking around, but the Bushies might have removed the sentence from the final waiver because it would have seemed silly to commit to moving the embassy within the administration’s last two months, while waiving the law for six months.*

And if Obama’s people were looking for boilerplate for the waiver, they would naturally have chosen the most recent version, no?

In other words, there’s not a lot of there there, even for the closest readers of policy change.

*Although, Bush could have signed the order on Jan. 20. That would have ended things with a bang.