Recently I settled a case for a client. The other side drafted an agreement along the traditional lines: he admits certain things, agrees the other side did nothing wrong, agrees that the agreement is no precedent for anything and cannot be used in any other forum, each side would not make statements about the settlement or disparage the other side, etc. We put the agreement on the record in front of the judge. Then the client said he wanted to make a statement "for the record." He proceeded to say that he was not guilty of anything, the other side was, that they were unfair and coerced this settlement, and were generally disreputable individuals with the slipperyness of the most amoral of the Medici.
The judge told him he could not do that if he signed the agreement. He told the judge he had seen on TV that President Bush just signed a bill that said the US could not build permanent bases in Iraq, and then issued a signing statement that he could build permanent bases in Iraq. If the president could sign something and repudiate it at the same time almost 600 times in signing statements, then so could he.
The judge could not persuade him the president had the power to say what he was signing was not what he was going to do.
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