Either President Obama is going with the trend of the last 15 years or so, or he’s opposed to saying “no”. Any way you slice it, the number of vetoes he’s issued in the past six-and-a-half years (the duration of presidency up until this point) is what it is.

And that number would be: four.

Obama’s predecessor — George W. Bush — isn’t far behind. He finished up his two stints with 12 total.

More on the interesting, policy-shaping statistic from American Thinker:

Bill Clinton, who fought with Republicans, issued 37.  Ronald Reagan, who fought with Democrats, issued 78.  You don’t even get this close to finding so few vetoes unless you go back to Warren G. Harding, and even he issued more vetoes (6) in three years than Obama has in 6.5 years.

To find a president who issued so few with at least three years in office, you have to go back to Millard Fillmore (1850-1853), who issued zero.

Millard! Millard never said no. Perhaps because he wasn’t President for too long, or because held the distinction of being the last Whig president? Most likely the latter.

But back to Obama — why are his vetoes so low? The dominant theory also comes from American Thinker, and it goes a little something like this:

The reason that Obama has issued so few vetoes, as Mark Levin noted yesterday, is because Republicans will pass only bills that Obama will sign.  Even Jimmy Carter, who had a fellow Democratic Congress, issued way more vetoes (31).

The four bills that Barack has vetoed are as follows: the Keystone Pipeline, a single appropriations bill, the NLRB election rule and a law about notarizations.