Exploring the Cheney Vault, Continued...

Highlights from today's Washington Post story on the Cheney Vice-Presidency:


"Cheney has changed history more than once, earning his reputation as the nation's most powerful vice president. His impact has been on public display in the arenas of foreign policy and homeland security, and in a long-running battle to broaden presidential authority. But he has also been the unseen hand behind some of the president's major domestic initiatives."


"The president is 'the decider,' as Bush puts it, but the vice president often serves up his menu of choices."


"'Dick's major concern, one of them was, and I agree, that there needs to be a greater and more effective role for the vice president,' Marsh, a longtime Cheney friend, said in an interview. 'He holds the view, as do I, that the vice president should be the chief of staff in effect, that everything should run through his office.'"

"In Bush, Cheney found the perfect partner. The president's willingness to delegate left plenty of room for his more detail-oriented vice president."


"Cheney's influence is manifested not just in crisis but also through his extraordinary involvement in the daily machinery of the White House."


"It is well known that Cheney is usually the last to speak to the president before Bush makes a decision. Less so is his role, to a degree unmatched by his predecessors, in steering debate by weighing in at the lower-level meetings where proposals are born and die."


"Perhaps more important than Cheney's influence in pushing policies is his power to stop them before they reach the Oval Office."



There can be no doubt now as to the immense influence this Vice-President carries within the W administration. His fingers are in most of the policy pies cooked up in the White House, and it is no wonder that each one fed to the American public has a rather odd taste...


What I take issue with, however, is not the fact that he wields this much power. In my opinion the VP post has always been under-utilized - you just basically wait for the top guy to keel over - and I see no problem with the person in this position trying to accomplish the policy goals of his president in a more forceful manner (they were, after all, on the same ticket!). What really disturbs me is the VP's utter contempt for the other branches of government and disdain for accountability. The VP's argument that his office is not part of the executive branch because he is the president of the Senate - and is therefore not required to disclose his handling of classified information as directed by the president - is a semantic stretch that would have raised many an eyebrow at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia some 200 odd years ago. It is an audacious claim whose only purpose is to circumvent accountability. It would appear that this VP office would especially need some form of accountability and oversight, given their notorious and conspicuous bouts of classified information leaking (see Scooter Libby).


It all comes down to this: The founders crafted the Constitution and our government with specific safeguards against the abusive use of power. In other words, they made three co-equal branches of government that would be able to check and balance each other. And put in even another way, no single branch can act without being responsible for its actions: ACCOUNTABILITY! Tyranny is born from unchecked power, and the Founding Fathers, having dealt with tyranny first-hand, knew the dangers of an unaccountable government.


Vice-President Dick Cheney appears to be under the impression that he does not need to be held accountable for his actions. He has the freedom to push his agenda without any consequences. And even if you agree that he is not accountable because his office is not technically part of the executive branch, he has to be accountable somehow!!! If not the executive, then the legislative or even the judicial!! And if under neither, he is then a rogue entity within our government.


This VP has seriously undermined two hundred years of checks and balances on government power, and I shutter to think what lies at the end of this path if it is not properly and forcefully addressed.