The most corrupt VP in history?

[Dirt]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19360916/

We should be impeaching him.

[noun]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19360916/

We should be impeaching him.

Impeached and imprisoned. Never have we had a more blatantly corrupt VP.

[Midnight Son]

He's just misunderstood. Yeah, that's it!

[shift6]

Arrested, not impeached. This is a different kind of crime. The good part is that he could be arrested on the spot without all those spineless jackoffs in Congress hemming and hawing over it.

[Coca Cola Zero]

The good part is that he could be arrested on the spot without all those spineless jackoffs in Congress hemming and hawing over it.

Who is going to arrest him? Agents of Alberto "Serves at the pleasure of the President" Gonzales' Justice Department?

[bigdruid]

Impeached and imprisoned. Never have we had a more blatantly corrupt VP.
Sheesh, he's not even the worst VP in my lifetime (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiro_Agnew).

Kids these days - "history" is what they had for breakfast.

[Coca Cola Zero]

Agnew was VP during my lifetime (he resigned 9 days after I was born), so I'm an expert on this subject!

Cheney is worse, IMO. Agnew may have broken more individual laws in a more clear-cut manner, but Cheney has done far more to destroy the system of checks and balances that hold American government together, which is a greater offense, in my book. The same goes for Nixon vs Bush the Lesser. Nixon may have been a worse scumbag on a personal level, but Bush has done far more long term damage to the country than Nixon ever dreamed of.

[bigdruid]

I guess it depends on what you blame on Cheney vs what you blame on Bush. Given that the VP has very little direct power, I'm unconvinced that Cheney is directly responsible for significantly undermining checks and balances (although the linked article certainly shows he's trying his best).

[shift6]

Who is going to arrest him? Agents of Alberto "Serves at the pleasure of the President" Gonzales' Justice Department?
Yes, that one. We hope. From the article:

[Alberto "Serves at the pleasure of the President" Gonzales'] Justice Department confirmed yesterday that it is looking into the issue. "This matter is currently under review in the department," said spokesman Erik Ablin, who declined to elaborate.

[noun]

Sheesh, he's not even the worst VP in my lifetime (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiro_Agnew).

Kids these days - "history" is what they had for breakfast.

Dude, I lived through that too. Are you really saying Agnew's tax evasion is worse then everything Cheney's done to date?

[bigdruid]

Dude, "tax evasion" is legalese for "he took a quarter of a million dollars in bribes". We're not talking about the kind of "soft bribery" we have these days where you maybe funnel some government work to your cronies at Halliburton, quid pro quo style - he was demanding direct under-the-table cash payments.

But I do get your point - run of the mill bribery is not really a threat to our democracy.

[Coca Cola Zero]

"This matter is currently under review in the department," said spokesman Erik Ablin, who declined to elaborate.

Sounds very reassuring.

[JeffL]

Agnew was extremely corrupt in a normal criminal manner. He was caught taking lots of bribes, and the word is that he committed a lot more serious crimes. He was indeed a suitable VP for Nixon.

Cheney is more "interesting." I really don't have a good feel for what he has actually done that is criminal and corrupt, but I do have the feeling he is much more of a godfather kind of corrupt, while Agnew was more of a street criminal. And like other of his ilk, we may never know exactly what Cheney is and isn't guilty of.

[Lum]

Dick Cheney shot a man once. Just to watch him die.

[Glenn]

Dick Cheney shot a man once. Just to watch him die.And, true to form, he completely failed at implementing his plan, then botched the cover up.

[MrLipid]

I'm old enough to remember Nixon...as VP. Nixon's worst behavior, even as POTUS, pales beside the sneering lawlessness of Cheney.

[Qenan]

Impeached and imprisoned. Never have we had a more blatantly corrupt VP.

I dunno, Spiro was pretty blatantly corrupt.

[ElGuapo]

Corrupt is different than outright "I am above the law and immune to it" secretive, grinning evil.

[unbongwah]

This bickering is pointless. Can we not just agree that Cheney is a fuckin' tool and the sooner he's out of office, the better?

[Kunikos]

And, true to form, he completely failed at implementing his plan, then botched the cover up.

No, that was the third man. He killed a couple hobos to prep first.

[russellmz00]

Impeached and imprisoned. Never have we had a more blatantly corrupt VP.

if you ever see a copy of steve tally's "bland ambition", make sure to grab it. lots of great stories about vps. vps aren't worth a warm bucket of shit.

there's the one that helped cause wwii (by having germany pay reparations in ever increasing installments, which helped set off the mega-inflation)

there's the one that killed alexander hamilton and tried to betray the us to spain.

there's the one that defected over to the south during the civil war.

there's the one that was drunk at the inaugural.

[bdfinally]

the HOUSE stands together

"This is a little bit of a nonissue," Perino said at a briefing dominated by the issue. Cheney is not subject to the executive order, she said, "because the president gets to decide whether or not he should be treated separately, and he's decided that he should."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/22/AR2007062201809.html

[bago]

The sycophantic apparatus falls apart once there is a traceable record.

[John Reynolds]

Wow, who knew that the veep, running each presidential election on the same ticket for the highest executive position and is next in line for that office, isn't actually part of the executive branch.

[Clay]

It's funny to think that George Washington and the founding fathers had the personal integrity to put together a system of checks and balances that they were happy to have the opportunity to serve under the constraints of. I'm not sure there are many politicians in American now who would do the same.

[bdfinally]

this is going to be sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/chapter_1/

[Jason McCullough]

Impeach the motherfuckers already.

[jfletch]

It's weird that this is an issue now, all of the sudden. But I guess anything that tries to shed some light on what this evil prick is doing with our money is worthwhile. I read on various blogs a while ago about how Cheney won't even release the list of people that work for him (as required by law). In the page of the employee handbook there is instead a sheet (undoubtedly written by Addington) describing how Cheney is part of the fourth branch of government that nobody in the past 200+ years has noticed. Not part of the executive, not part of the legislative, so neither can be oversee him (but he gets all the executive branch privileges).

Some people have done some, you know, journalism and found that Cheney might have up to 80 people working for him. In contrast, Al Gore had 6.

[noun]

if you ever see a copy of steve tally's "bland ambition", make sure to grab it. lots of great stories about vps.

Cool, thanks for the recommendation, I'll pick it up next time I'm at Powell's.

Looks like simply calling Cheney the worst VP is an oversimplication. But it almost seems a new word needs to be created to describe what he's been doing while in office.

[Lunch of Kong]

old
http://www.evgschool.org/branches.jpg

NEW!
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/2007-06-21_Rahm_Cheney_Chart.jpg

[triggercut]

I guess it depends on what you blame on Cheney vs what you blame on Bush. Given that the VP has very little direct power, I'm unconvinced that Cheney is directly responsible for significantly undermining checks and balances (although the linked article certainly shows he's trying his best).

You're outta your league here, Donny.

[bdfinally]

Air Force Two touched down in Sydney this past Feb. 24. Cheney had come to discuss Iraq. Prime Minister John Howard brought the conversation around to an Australian citizen who had unexpectedly become a political threat. Under pressure at home, Howard said he told Cheney that there must be a trial "with no further delay" for David Hicks, 31, who was beginning his sixth year at the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay. Five days later, Hicks was indicted as a war criminal. On March 26, he pleaded guilty to providing "material support" for terrorism. At every stage since his capture, in a taxi bound for the Afghan-Pakistan border, Hicks had crossed a legal landscape that Cheney did more than anyone to reshape. He was Detainee 002 at Guantanamo Bay, arriving on opening day at an asserted no man's land beyond the reach of sovereign law. Interrogators questioned him under guidelines that gave legal cover to the infliction of pain and fear -- and, according to an affidavit filed by British lawyer Steven Grosz, Hicks was subjected to beatings, sodomy with a foreign object, sensory deprivation, disorienting drugs and prolonged shackling in painful position.

The U.S. government denied those claims, and before accepting Hicks's guilty plea it required him to affirm that he had "never been illegally treated." But the tribunal's rules, written under principles Cheney advanced, would have allowed the Australian's conviction with evidence obtained entirely by "cruel, inhuman or degrading" techniques.

Shortly after Cheney returned from Australia, the Hicks case died with a whimper. The U.S. government abruptly shifted its stance in plea negotiations, dropping the sentence it offered from 20 years in prison to nine months if Hicks would say that he was guilty.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/pushing_the_envelope_on_presi/index.html

[jpinard]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19360916/

We should be impeaching him.

I get "Page not found". Did Cheney get to MSNBC?

[Lum]

NEW!
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/2007-06-21_Rahm_Cheney_Chart.jpg

Oh, you're so funny. Like the legislative and judicial branch exist as sovereign decision makers in Cheneyland.

[Brian Rucker]

Old thread on Cheney's good buddy Addington:

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=27307&highlight=Addington

Also from the WP article Sunday:

Down in the bunker, according to a colleague with firsthand knowledge, Cheney and Addington began contemplating the founding question of the legal revolution to come: What extraordinary powers will the president need for his response?

Before the day ended, Cheney's lawyer joined forces with Timothy E. Flanigan, the deputy White House counsel, linked by secure video from the Situation Room. Flanigan patched in John C. Yoo at the Justice Department's fourth-floor command center. White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales joined later.

Thus formed the core legal team that Cheney oversaw, directly and indirectly, after the terrorist attacks.

Yoo, a Berkeley professor-turned-deputy chief of the Office of Legal Counsel, became the theorist of an insurrection against legal limits on the commander in chief. Addington, backed by Flanigan, found levers of government policy and wrote the words that moved them.

"Addington, Flanigan and Gonzales were really a triumvirate," recalled Bradford A. Berenson, then an associate White House counsel. Yoo, he said, "was a supporting player."

Gonzales, a former Texas judge, had the seniority and the relationship with Bush. But Addington -- a man of imposing demeanor, intellect and experience -- dominated the group. Gonzales "was not a law-of-war expert and didn't have very developed views," Yoo recalled, echoing blunter observations by the Texan's White House colleagues.
Flanigan, with advice from Yoo, drafted the authorization for use of military force that Congress approved on Sept. 18. [Read the authorization document] Yoo said they used the broadest possible language because "this war was so different, you can't predict what might come up."

In fact, the triumvirate knew very well what would come next: the interception -- without a warrant -- of communications to and from the United States. Forbidden by federal law since 1978, the surveillance would soon be justified, in secret, as "incident to" the authority Congress had just granted. Yoo was already working on that memo, completing it on Sept. 25.

It was an extraordinary step, bypassing Congress and the courts, and its authors kept it secret from officials who were likely to object. Among the excluded was John B. Bellinger III, a man for whom Cheney's attorney had "open contempt," according to a senior government lawyer who saw them often. The eavesdropping program was directly within Bellinger's purview as ranking national security lawyer in the White House, reporting to Rice. Addington had no line responsibility. But he had Cheney's proxy, and more than once he accused Bellinger, to his face, of selling out presidential authority for good "public relations" or bureaucratic consensus.

Addington, who seldom speaks to reporters, declined to be interviewed.

"David is extremely principled and dedicated to doing what he feels is right, and can be a very tough customer when he perceives others as obstacles to achieving those goals," Berenson said. "But it's not personal in the sense that 'I don't like you.' It's all about the underlying principle."

Bryan Cunningham, Bellinger's former deputy, said: "Bellinger didn't know. That was a mistake." Cunningham said Rice's lawyer would have recommended vetting the surveillance program with the secret court that governs intelligence intercepts -- a step the Bush administration was forced to take five years later.
Flanigan recalled a conversation with Addington at the time in which the two discussed the salutary effect of showing bureaucrats that the president could act "without their blessing -- and without the interminable process that goes along with getting that blessing."

Throughout his long government career, Cheney had counseled against that kind of policy surprise, insisting that unvetted decisions lead presidents to costly mistakes.
Two years later, at his Nov. 13 lunch with Bush, Cheney brought the president the ultimate "oh, by the way" choice -- a far-reaching military order that most of Bush's top advisers had not seen.

According to Flanigan, Addington was not the first to think of military commissions but was the "best scholar of the FDR-era order" among their small group of trusted allies. "He gained a preeminent role by virtue of his sheer ability to turn out a draft of something in quick time."

That draft, said one of the few lawyers apprised of it, "was very closely held because it was coming right from the top."

To pave the way for the military commissions, Yoo wrote an opinion on Nov. 6, 2001, declaring that Bush did not need approval from Congress or federal courts. Yoo said in an interview that he saw no need to inform the State Department, which hosts the archives of the Geneva Conventions and the government's leading experts on the law of war. "The issue we dealt with was: Can the president do it constitutionally?" Yoo said. "State -- they wouldn't have views on that."

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, was astonished to learn that the draft gave the Justice Department no role in choosing which alleged terrorists would be tried in military commissions. Over Veterans Day weekend, on Nov. 10, he took his objections to the White House.

The attorney general found Cheney, not Bush, at the broad conference table in the Roosevelt Room. According to participants, Ashcroft said that he was the president's senior law enforcement officer, supervised the FBI and oversaw terrorism prosecutions nationwide. The Justice Department, he said, had to have a voice in the tribunal process. He was enraged to discover that Yoo, his subordinate, had recommended otherwise -- as part of a strategy to deny jurisdiction to U.S. courts.

Raising his voice, participants said, Ashcroft talked over Addington and brushed aside interjections from Cheney. "The thing I remember about it is how rude, there's no other word for it, the attorney general was to the vice president," said one of those in the room. Asked recently about the confrontation, Ashcroft replied curtly: "I'm just not prepared to comment on that."

According to Yoo and three other officials, Ashcroft did not persuade Cheney and got no audience with Bush.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/chapter_1/

[JeffL]

There's an ironic twist to what Bush and company have done. It may well be that, as a result of such extraordinary suspensions of rights in the name of catching terrorists, we end up not being as effective in catching and interrogating and dealing with real terrorists in the future, as we tend to swing from extreme to extreme. I could easily see us going so far to correct the wrongs that have been perpetuated that we end up with laws and rules weaker than they would have otherwise been with a more thoughtful but no less serious approach. An analog may be the way we dismantled and decoupled so much of our intelligence capability as a response to past misuses.

[Andrew Mayer]

There's an ironic twist to what Bush and company have done. It may well be that, as a result of such extraordinary suspensions of rights in the name of catching terrorists, we end up not being as effective in catching and interrogating and dealing with real terrorists in the future, as we tend to swing from extreme to extreme. I could easily see us going so far to correct the wrongs that have been perpetuated that we end up with laws and rules weaker than they would have otherwise been with a more thoughtful but no less serious approach. An analog may be the way we dismantled and decoupled so much of our intelligence capability as a response to past misuses.

Is it surprising that abusing a system has a long term negative effects and weakens the society as a whole?

[Andrew Mayer]

There's an ironic twist to what Bush and company have done. It may well be that, as a result of such extraordinary suspensions of rights in the name of catching terrorists, we end up not being as effective in catching and interrogating and dealing with real terrorists in the future, as we tend to swing from extreme to extreme. I could easily see us going so far to correct the wrongs that have been perpetuated that we end up with laws and rules weaker than they would have otherwise been with a more thoughtful but no less serious approach. An analog may be the way we dismantled and decoupled so much of our intelligence capability as a response to past misuses.

Is it surprising that abusing a system has a long term negative effects and weakens the society as a whole?

Trying to fix it is, however, better than not fixing it. Trying to sell that as a negative is the evil that these bastards have been attempting to push on the country since Nixon.

[JeffL]

Is it surprising that abusing a system has a long term negative effects and weakens the society as a whole?

Trying to fix it is, however, better than not fixing it. Trying to sell that as a negative is the evil that these bastards have been attempting to push on the country since Nixon.

Not surprising, just ironic.

What we have to do is get some people in power with the intelligence and will to fix things the right way, rather than do a lot that is more political show than actual thoughtful and effective reform.

Hmmm - that sounds like people who aren't politicians....

[Brian Rucker]

I'll bet you David Addington would tell you he's not a politician and he's all about fixing things "the right way".

[Unicorn McGriddle]

There's an ironic twist to what Bush and company have done. It may well be that, as a result of such extraordinary suspensions of rights in the name of catching terrorists, we end up not being as effective in catching and interrogating and dealing with real terrorists in the future, as we tend to swing from extreme to extreme. I could easily see us going so far to correct the wrongs that have been perpetuated that we end up with laws and rules weaker than they would have otherwise been with a more thoughtful but no less serious approach. An analog may be the way we dismantled and decoupled so much of our intelligence capability as a response to past misuses.

Oh yeah. That's the danger here.

[Jason McCullough]

Jeff, is that warmed-over "Carter broke the CIA by stopping their assassination squads" or something else?

[AaronSofaer]

No, it's a perfectly reasonable belief that the US will swing towards a possible "other side" of certain issues.

For instance, to take a historical example, I don't believe it was a good thing that we became so isolationist after World War One, though we were arguably too interventionist before.

There is a balance to all things.

[Jason McCullough]

My point is I don't know what the hell we did that was "too far" in the other direction after Nixon. One, the government/political figures who say that sort of thing tend to be the sort of people I don't trust in the slightest; two, judging by the crap we pulled in the 1980s, apparently we didn't go far enough.

[JeffL]

Jason, if you read the 9/11 commission report again you'll see numerous comments on how the dismantling of a lot of our previous HUMINT resources hurt us, as well as the firewalls that were placed between agencies as a result of perceived abuses (I say perceived just because I haven't spent a lot of time studying that.) I had a lot of 21 hour flights to Asia and read the report probably 3 or 4 times, with lots of notes written in the white spaces. ;) I would imagine you've read it at least once.

We've been "pulling crap" via our intelligence agencies for a long, long time: see JFK, LBJ, Nixon, etc.

[JeffL]

Oh yeah. That's the danger here.

Ah, damn, the quite didn't include the part about my shitting something on silver clouds or whatever. I rather liked that. :)

I didn't expect such an emotive response to my comment. OK, maybe that was naive here, LOL!

I was actually stating that Bush and cronies may have screwed us in even another manner. I'm surprised that brought out such a negative response. LOL!

[Brian Rucker]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

This is shit that had to be knocked off. Now we're knocking on it again. And look how well that's working out.

[Hawkeye Fierce]

So, with this whole Executive Branch "is-he-or-isn't-he" thing - is anyone independent of the White House actually defending Cheney's position? I can't think of a more starkly obvious acid test for putting partisanship over any other considerations.

[JeffL]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

This is shit that had to be knocked off. Now we're knocking on it again. And look how well that's working out.

Without a doubt, presidents going back to JFK (and probably earlier) were abusing the power and capabilities of the intelligence agencies for their own agendas. And that indeed had to be stopped. The problem is when you make big comprehensive changes that actually end up putting the citizens at risk. Putting a firewall between the agencies was one of those changes. Severely reducing the human intelligence capabilities was another. It's not easy or simple to both keep the intelligence gathering and analyis capabilty you need to protect the nation and ensure that citizen's rights will be maintained and abuses (Guitmo, assassination schemes against foreign heads of state, etc.) will be prevented. That is not in any way to be taken as any kind of endorsement of the current abuses and the need to stamp them out. My comment was that, in their incredibly abusive attempts to prevent all terrorism, this administration has probably initiated what will probably be an overreaction the other direction that will likely make us more vulnerable than had they not done what they have done. The reaction here to what I thought was a simple comment is a good example - there are no doubt people that are so disgusted by what has gone on they would just as soon dissolve the CIA and NSA and other such agencies.

[Brian Rucker]

No CIA, no overthrow of Iran's elected leader in '53. No overthrow of Iran's elected leader in '53 no overthrow of the Shah in the late 70's. No overthrow of the Shah by Islamic radicals in Iran, no overreaction by the U.S. and the Sunnis to counterbalance extremist Shiite theology with extremist Sunni theology and no growing base of Sunni radicals ready to go off and fight the USSR in Afghanistan.

That's the middle east. Care for me to go a round with Central America next?

There's a reason intelligence agencies, domestic and international, aren't supposed to be mixing and mingling intelligence. The closer they get the closer you come to a police state. The tactics and approaches you can accept being used against hostile states and organizations shouldn't be those you want infiltrating into domestic law enforcement. And you don't want domestic law enforcement's abilities to spy on citizens becoming tools used not for specific investigations but as blanket systems for data sifting, fishing expeditions, that gives the CIA and NSA carte blanche to violate their own mandates.

I'm willing to take one or two wildass potshots from loonies overseas to a systematic, beaurocratic, construct that comes across looking like Big Brother 1.0's beta test. Think I'm paranoid? Look at what the hell Addington and Cheney have been up to. They really don't give a shit.

If you're willing to give up freedom for security, as the saying goes, you deserve neither.

[Jason McCullough]

This may surprise you, but the 9/11 report is a political document. It's not written by a bunch of disinterested robots; you get a lot of bullshit. If I remember correctly , former CIA leaders were claiming on television within a week of 9/11 that it was all the fault of the Church commission. The supposed "firewalls" were an excuse for the political types in charge and the career guys to ignore something they weren't interested in. Right, like they'd suddenly have started caring if only there wasn't some decorative hoops they had to jump through on intelligence-gathering.

9/11 happened because no one in government was really paying that much attention, with a few tiny exceptions, and most importantly, the CIA has been completely incompetent since their creation. Near as I can tell they've fucked up everything they've touched, unless you count butchering south american leftists as a success.

[AaronSofaer]

I'm glad to see that in the hate for the NSA and CIA etc nobody is ragging on the FBI.

Maybe it's just my idealism, but I like to think that whatever you may think about intelligence agencies, the guys that deal with child-kidnap-racists have at least some use.

You may now go back to your general TLA hate.

[JeffL]

This may surprise you, but the 9/11 report is a political document. It's not written by a bunch of disinterested robots; you get a lot of bullshit.

Weren't a lot of people here extremely upset because the White House was ignoring the recommendations of the committee that wrote that report?

I.e., what's the data that what they reported on problems with the intelligence structure was political B.S. and not valid?

[JeffL]

No CIA, no overthrow of Iran's elected leader in '53. No overthrow of Iran's elected leader in '53 no overthrow of the Shah in the late 70's. No overthrow of the Shah by Islamic radicals in Iran, no overreaction by the U.S. and the Sunnis to counterbalance extremist Shiite theology with extremist Sunni theology and no growing base of Sunni radicals ready to go off and fight the USSR in Afghanistan.

That's the middle east. Care for me to go a round with Central America next?

There's a reason intelligence agencies, domestic and international, aren't supposed to be mixing and mingling intelligence. The closer they get the closer you come to a police state. The tactics and approaches you can accept being used against hostile states and organizations shouldn't be those you want infiltrating into domestic law enforcement. And you don't want domestic law enforcement's abilities to spy on citizens becoming tools used not for specific investigations but as blanket systems for data sifting, fishing expeditions, that gives the CIA and NSA carte blanche to violate their own mandates.

I'm willing to take one or two wildass potshots from loonies overseas to a systematic, beaurocratic, construct that comes across looking like Big Brother 1.0's beta test. Think I'm paranoid? Look at what the hell Addington and Cheney have been up to. They really don't give a shit.

If you're willing to give up freedom for security, as the saying goes, you deserve neither.

Again, there's an assumption here that you can't set up an intelligence system that would track and prevent another 9/11 or worse without it trampling the rights of citizens.

Look, I'm the guy that apparently hates Nixon more than anyone on this particular board, not because of Watergate, that was just the tip of the iceburg, but because he used the intelligence agencies to do exactly what you're referring to. I have no desire to have that as the norm. But I also don't dismiss what could happen to us, what you call one or two potshots from some loonies, if you just decided screw foreign intelligence efforts, it's not worth the risk. I'm willing to believe that it is possible to establish intelligence efforts that are both effective and that respect certain moral and legal lines.

[Donald L.]

Cheney may meet his match in Democratic Rep. Emanuel (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/17332.html)

Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, on Wednesday will propose cutting all appropriations for Cheney's office from the bill that's needed to finance the executive branch.

``If the vice president truly believes he is not a part of the executive branch, he should return the salary the American taxpayers have been paying him since January 2001, and move out of the home for which they are footing the bill,'' Emanuel said.

Emanuel's proposed amendment would withhold the $4.4 million for Cheney's office until the vice president admits he's in the executive branch or the Government Accountability Office determines which branch Cheney serves in.

The goal is not to cut off the money, but to force a recognition that Cheney is in the executive branch and subject to the order on secrecy.

``The vice president has a choice to make,'' Emanuel said. ``If he believes his legal case, his office has no business being funded as part of the executive branch. However, if he demands executive-branch funding, he cannot ignore executive branch rules.''

[Brian Rucker]

That's fine Jeff, but I'm not willing to assume that's how it would work. Someone would have to present me a picture of the actual construct before I'd, grudgingly, nod and go along with it and salt it up with caveats and controls.

My approach certainly wouldn't be to say, cook something up, get it operational, and if it's too invasive and unconstitutional, then we'll talk about how to ratchet it back.

[JeffL]

I respect where you're coming from, Brian, and honestly, I'm not sure that I trust anything with a Washington construct (with any side in power) to not have opportunities for corruption. Someone whose name I don't recall, an old time Washington insider, said that it is a mark of just how good the politicians in Washington are, how they have achieved the ultimate in the world of politicians, that they can convince us that they are not first and foremost all about power and the politics of power. He commented that we should look at the top executives in the biggest companies in the world, at the power politics they play, and realize that they are an order of magnitude less political than anyone in Washington. Given that environment, is there a way to eliminate the potential for corruption in intelligence organizations whose entire raison d'etre is secretive activities?

But again, the question is what IS the right thing to do? I don't think we can stick our head in the sand and assume that if we don't have a strong intelligence capability we can assume the rest of the world will play nice and fair and we'll be OK. There are just too many people in the world today, with money and power and connections, who would consider it to be their ultimate life's dream to set off a nuclear device in the middle of a major city or to have (and this is by far my worst fear because it seems so difficult to prevent) suicide bombers set themselves off in malls and grocery stores all over the country on a regular basis. I wish I knew what the right answer was.

[Brian Rucker]

I don't think it's even possible to stop that. What I do think is that it's possible to make a whole lot of money selling systems and support that purport to help and to use this threat as an excuse to concentrate power in fewer and fewer hands. If national security is used an excuse to shut off debate and conceal what people are up to - then it's inherently anti-democratic.

The smartest thing we can do is just, plain, stop freaking out. Get back to a rational, surgical, law-enforcement approach and stop describing a bunch of loonies as Evil Incarnate That Threatens Western Civilization As We Know It then using that as a stick to pound on anyone some influential political interest group doesn't like - with the resultant backlash that only creates more damned loonies.

[Jason McCullough]

Weren't a lot of people here extremely upset because the White House was ignoring the recommendations of the committee that wrote that report?

I.e., what's the data that what they reported on problems with the intelligence structure was political B.S. and not valid?

It's a bait and switch. 9/11 did not happen except in the most trivial sense because some people somewhere thought they couldn't share data. Why were we reduced to relying on that to save us? Well, because no one gave a shit, and apparently stopping 9/11 came down to a couple of people going against the bureaucratic headwinds and somehow succeeding in spite of everything.

I think it's a bit like claiming a car crash was the result of the brakes not being strong enough to stop in time, when the driver was going 80 and drunk. Yes, that might have fixed it, but it wasn't anywhere near the most significant factor.

[JeffL]

OK, you and I have different interpretations of the report findings and other findings. S'OK, but damn, I really hate that you and I have differing opinions on something...

VBG - ;)

[bdfinally]

I don't think it's even possible to stop that. What I do think is that it's possible to make a whole lot of money selling systems and support that purport to help and to use this threat as an excuse to concentrate power in fewer and fewer hands. If national security is used an excuse to shut off debate and conceal what people are up to - then it's inherently anti-democratic.

The smartest thing we can do is just, plain, stop freaking out. Get back to a rational, surgical, law-enforcement approach and stop describing a bunch of loonies as Evil Incarnate That Threatens Western Civilization As We Know It then using that as a stick to pound on anyone some influential political interest group doesn't like - with the resultant backlash that only creates more damned loonies.

i agree, we need to stop FREAKING out. my biggest fear isn't some loon setting off the big one in the middle of some metro area. it's that several teams of SKILLED and COMMITTED terrorists pull a DC sniper. i remember what that did to this area, a hundred miles away from ground zero. a few carefully placed cells could affect the whole mid-atlantic region for months and impact our rights for years.

as a sidebar, i went with a friend to a private politcal function last saturday afternoon, as a favor. every local republican elected office holder from local school board member to a certain cowboy boot wearing former governor and senator was there. i'm still shocked by the amount of support for our presidents policies and blame for the current state of affairs, placed at the feet of demo defeatists. it wasn't like anyone was pandering for votes either, there were by a wide margin more politicians than citizens. my point is that the construct has bled down to the most basic level and is being reinforced daily.

[Johan O]

Not to be a nitpicking asshole. But could you please use capital letters at the start of your sentences. Makes it much easier to parse. You even went to the effort of using all capitals on FREAKING, SKILLED and COMMITED. If you had just saved up those shift clicks you could have used them to capitalise the first letters in your sentences instead.

[Brian Rucker]

Story today, oddly enough, about the CIA releasing old "Family Jewels" documents that were the source of the complaints and remedies in the Church Committee.

Article Here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/26/AR2007062600861.html

Q&A Transcript Here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/06/26/DI2007062601462.html?hpid=topnews

[Eightball]

The WashPo has been running a series of articles on Dick Cheney this week. Incredibly well written, and quite frankly it's a bit shocking to see how much influence on decision making he exercises.

Here (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/?hpid=topnews)


Dick Cheney is the most influential and powerful man ever to hold the office of vice president. This series examines Cheney's largely hidden and little-understood role in crafting policies for the War on Terror, the economy and the environment.

Sunday: Part 1

Working in the Background

A master of bureaucracy and detail, Cheney exerts most of his influence out of public view.

Monday: Part 2

Wars and Interrogations


Convinced that the "war on terror" required "robust interrogations" of captured suspects, Dick Cheney pressed the Bush administration to carve out exceptions to the Geneva Conventions.
Sidebar: Cheney on Presidential Power[/URL]

Tuesday: Part 3

Dominating Budget Decisions

Working behind the scenes, Dick Cheney has made himself the dominant voice on tax and spending policy, outmaneuvering rivals for the president's ear.
Sidebar: Expanding Authority for No. 2 Spot
Sidebar: Taking on the Supreme Court Case

Wednesday: Part 4

Environmental Policy

Dick Cheney steered some of the Bush administration's most important environmental decisions -- easing air pollution controls, opening public parks to snowmobiles and diverting river water from threatened salmon.

Sidebar: Maintaining Connections

[JeffL]

I think this demonstrates the peril of having a very weak person in the office of the presidency. Duh.

Has there been another example in modern times (or ever?) of a president who was so weak that the VP essentially ran things?

[BlueJackalope]

I think this demonstrates the peril of having a very weak person in the office of the presidency. Duh.

Has there been another example in modern times (or ever?) of a president who was so weak that the VP essentially ran things?

How in charge of things was Truman towards the end of FDR's life?

[russellmz00]

How in charge of things was Truman towards the end of FDR's life?

not very. everything was tossed into his lap when fdr died with no briefings at all.

[Jason McCullough]

Yet according to McCullough's Truman (no relation), everyone in washington knew FDR was a dead man walking during the conventions, including Truman. Political horse trading for nominees back then was so strange.

[jeffd]

Read Truman a bit more closely Jason; Harry didn't realize just how bad off FDR was until he dined with him after the convention.

Roosevelt's people did, though.

[jeffd]

Also BlueJackalope is correct. FDR kept Truman out of the loop, which is especially bizarre given that FDR knew he was almost certainly not going to survive the entire term.

My only guess is that he figured he might at least live to see WWII end.

[BlueJackalope]

Also BlueJackalope is correct. FDR kept Truman out of the loop, which is especially bizarre given that FDR knew he was almost certainly not going to survive the entire term.

My only guess is that he figured he might at least live to see WWII end.

Quoted for uniqueness.

But actually I was just asking the question. russellmz00 was correct.

[Dirt]

Maybe FDR didn't want to influence the decisions Truman would have to make. Nah.

[Dirt]

I think this demonstrates the peril of having a very weak person in the office of the presidency. Duh.

Has there been another example in modern times (or ever?) of a president who was so weak that the VP essentially ran things?
One could argue the end of Reagan's 2nd term. Some (few) would argue that Hamilton was an almost co-President.

[Jason McCullough]

Read Truman a bit more closely Jason; Harry didn't realize just how bad off FDR was until he dined with him after the convention.

Roosevelt's people did, though.

No, really. You know that scene where FDR says through the phone to someone that if Truman wants to break up the Democratic party in a time of war, go right ahead, not realizing Truman is listening? Shortly after that, once Truman realizes he's in - but before the convention ends - he goes back and says something like "I knew then I'd soon be President due to FDR's illness."

[jeffd]

I will go back and read that chapter tonight. WE WILL SEE WHO IS THE BOSS HERE.

[CSL]

No, really. You know that scene where FDR says through the phone to someone that if Truman wants to break up the Democratic party in a time of war, go right ahead, not realizing Truman is listening? Shortly after that, once Truman realizes he's in - but before the convention ends - he goes back and says something like "I knew then I'd soon be President due to FDR's illness."

I don't see that particular line anywhere in the whole nomination section - a lot of people are predicting FDR will die sure, but no comment on it by Truman. Plus, Truman shows much shock when he has lunch with the President after being nominated stating: "His hands were shaking and he talks with considerable difficulty. . . . It doesn't seem to be any mental lapse of any kind, but physically he's just going to pieces." Then in the next paragraph I got the feeling that only then did he realize that FDR would be dead soon when Eddie McKim notes that FDR might be dead before the inaugeration and Truman responds: "I'm afraid you're right, Eddie. And it scares the hell out of me." (pg.327)

[jeffd]

Thanks for covering that for me CSL. That's exactly how I remembered it too.

[Jason McCullough]

Doh, you're right. The scene I was thinking of was election night.

[Dirt]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070710/ap_on_go_co/democrats_cheney

No money for Cheney.

[TomChick]

You go, Congress. Now lets see some similar creativity with the White House's instructions to its lackeys to ignore subpoenas. And while you're at it, put some stuff in the budget stipulating a reduced military presence in Iraq, if not an outright withdrawal. Also, please give me a pony for my birthday.

kthxbye

-Tom