Late Bush move 'almost sign of contempt' for election results

Turley: Late Bush move 'almost sign of contempt' for vote results

Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley describes George Bush's intention to finalize 90 last-minute federal regulations, many of them on particularly sensitive issues, as "akin to fouling a water-well ... almost a sign of contempt for the results of the election."

In an appearance Wednesday on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Turley explained, "This is the ultimate dead-hand control. ... What a president can do is, by finalizing a regulation, he can force his successor to go through an entirely new regulatory process that can take years."

"What the means in real terms," Turley noted, "is that you can have an Obama administration that continues to carry out George Bush's directives. And for people who elected Obama for change, that's a particularly obnoxious reality to accept."