Obama's signature

[EweSheep]

Why does he have to use 22 pens to sign his name to pass the health reform bill?

Is there a significe in why 22 pens?

What's wrong with ONE pen?

Is his signature VALID even it has those short lines, particularly his "O"? It looks crappy!

How did the 22 pens came about?

 

[Boyd]

22 pens is 22 too many. Even honoring the dead its a 21 gun salute......... 22? WT heck

 

[pips&peeps]

More wise government spending, just like the bill he signed.

 

[EweSheep]

It was on the CBS news and I thought WHOA! that's alot of pens!

 

[debilorrah]

Maybe he is OCD about pens.

 

[Amyable]

Quote:

Do they pass the pens around as momentos or something?

 

[debilorrah]

This is about the PENS people. Please be kind enough to EweSheep to take other comments to facebook or somethin.

 

[Camelot Farms]

Hmmmm. Good question. Off to google for some answers....

Edited to add this:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1974490,00.html

 

[CityClucks]

Yes, the pens all become historical artifacts.

 

[sgtmom52]

Quoted from Time.com

Actually, the President was just adhering to an obscure Washington tradition. The practice of using multiple pens to sign important legislation dates at least as far back as Franklin Roosevelt and is now one of our government's frivolous little quirks, much like that oversized gavel Nancy Pelosi carried around the other day.

The rationale is fairly simple. The pen used to sign historic legislation itself becomes a historical artifact. The more pens a President uses, the more thank-you gifts he can offer to those who helped create that piece of history. The White House often engraves the pens, which are then given as keepsakes to key proponents or supporters of the newly signed legislation. When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, he reportedly used over 75 pens (video footage can be found here, although camera cut-aways make it hard to keep track) and gave one of the first ones to Martin Luther King Jr. Senators Hubert Humphrey and Everett McKinley Dirksen also received pens for their aid in shuttling the bill through Congress. And in 1996, President Clinton gave the four pens he used to sign the Line-Item Veto bill — which allowed Presidents to veto individual sections of legislation, rather than the entire thing — to those most likely to appreciate the bill's impact: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.​