Update to this story.
Via PennAve:
White House press secretary Jay Carney Friday said that President Obama has been “judicious” in using executive orders, dismissingGOP criticism that the president has completely sidestepped the legislative branch to enact his agenda.
“There is no question that this president has been judicious in his use of executive actions,” Carney told reporters, insisting that Obama has wielded such power less frequently than his predecessors.
As a presidential candidate, however, Obama frequently ripped President George W. Bush for relying on executive actions rather than consulting Congress.
“The biggest problems that we’re facing right now had to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all, and that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m president of the United States of America,” then-Sen. Obama said in 2008.
When asked about such remarks, Carney insisted that Obama was speaking about the “quality” of Bush’s executive orders, not the overall number. Obama’s top spokesman pointed to Bush’s endorsement of torture against enemy combatants and other executive actions related to national security as proof of overreach by the White House.