Over at the Executive Watch blog, Georgia State lawprof and former OLC lawyer Neil Kinkopf has a post disagreeing with co-blogger Eric Posner's suggestion that signing statements don't really matter.

  My own take is sort of a middle ground. On one hand, I agree with Eric that signing statements themselves have no legal effect (at least that I know of). On the other hand, an Administration that issues them in public is probably acting on them in private (or will, if the relevant facts are presented). As I see it, signing statements are sort of like "present sense impressions" allowed as exceptions to the hearsay rule: Sure, we don't know with certainty that the person is being truthful, but it's more likely that the person is fairly representing the state of his mind or his understanding in that setting than in other ones.

  Put another way, signing statements are indirect public evidence of a particular view of presidential power. The implicit constitutional arguments made by signing statements are therefore reasonably helpful evidence as to what an Administration is doing on matters not revealed to the public.