4PM Patriot act extension sort of signed

Recently, after the Patriot Act extension was passed by Congress, the bill was sent to the President for his signature. Unfortunately for the Patriot Act, Obama was in Europe at the time. Not to worry. He just told the people in the White House to let a robot do the job for him. That’s right. There’s a device called the “autopen” which holds a real pen and mimics the signature of someone like the President so as to “actually sign” things like Christmas cards instead of stamping them. The weird part is that the Constitution says he’s supposed to sign all bills. And what I don’t get is that if a voice authorization to have the bill signed is enough, then why require the signature at all? Why not just have a stamp that says, “Voice Authorization by order of the President” or something? And if we require a signature, why not just a stamp instead of this elaborate forgery? The whole thing just seems so odd to me and like a ¼ solution to what isn’t really a problem. It’s like someone proposed a stamp and the Dept. of Justice (in a 2005 memo) said, “No, it needs to be a pen, but it doesn’t have to be the President’s hand holding the pen….”