When I asked if Cheney had “found” a fourth branch of government in position that until a decade or so ago was considered a seat warmer for a presidential run and the designated state funeral stand-in for the president, I didn’t realize they were actually setting this forth as a legal argument. Dear God.
This means that he considers himself even more “unitary” than he considers the president, beyond all reach of either branch, answerable to no one.
Cheney is refusing to comply with a presidential executive order. What do you suppose the Empty Codpiece feels about this? Does he know that his Vice president believes he has an independent office that doesn’t answer to him or anyone else?
Digby has been writing for some time about Dick Cheney’s manipulation of US constitutional law to put himself beyond the scrutiny or oversight of any branch of government, including the judiciary. In effect Cheney and his lawyer accomplices have created a virtual dictatorship with unlimited and unaccountable powers that even usurps the presidency. That he planned to do this is something that has been obvious from the outset, as many law-bloggers have pointed out.
But some of Digby’s commenters seem taken aback. Have they been walking around with their eyes shut? Why are people so damned surprised at this? Juan Cole was warning of this explicitly in 2004:
In short, has there been a Cheney coup-by-default? Is W. so disengaged that he is taking dictation from the former CEO of Halliburton? And, we now know that LBJ used to spend his mornings on the phone to business cronies doing private business. How much of Cheney’s time is spent on the phone to old business associates in the corporate world (seeking to know what legislation they would like to have)? Who pushed Bush into the second, disastrous round of tax-slashing, which was a way of selling our children into indentured servitude?
It may well be that the US has not a presidency but a Duumvirate a la ancient Rome.
As they started so they’ll finish. Immediately post-election the White House promised “a cataclysmic fight to the death” with Democratic opponents. Well, they’re just doing exactly what they said. They may be evil bastards but at least they’re consistent evil bastards.
I’m not expecting anything at all from the Democrats: they are bought and sold and it’s all about the Presidential race now anyhow (which will be horribly ironic when Cheney cancels the election under the special emergency powers that he issued to himself in secret). From what I’ve seen of the Democrats in Congress so far it appears that, with honourable exceptions like Feingold, the leadership’ve already given up this fight – unless they’re playing a particularly abstruse long game that us mere mortals are unable to see. I know I can’t see it and I’ve been watching American politics for decades. But if there is no plan and Democrats don’t act, we’re all screwed. So why don’t they?
There could be lots of reasons for this apparent timidity, political and financial, but always at the back of my mind is the potential for just plain out and out blackmail.
That there’s a policy of personal destruction practiced by Cheney is well illustrated in the Plame trial. The OVP has had access to the product of the NSA’s domestic spying programme from the outset before 9/11, and Democrats in Congress have almost certainly not been exempt from scrutiny. It would be utterly naive to think otherwise, given the proven ruthlessness of the administration in silencing its critics and enemies.
Who knows what embarassing swords are being held over whose heads?
I really don’t think Democrats will impeach Gonzalez, Cheney or Bush unless they’re forced to, and that’s down to the citizens. Anti-government protests are just so much wasted theatre on this issue. The only way to get movement is for Americans to compel their newly-elected representatives to actually do their jobs, by whatever forceful yet peaceful means they find necessary. It’s not up to me, a non-voter, to say what those means might be.
Their are those hoping for a leader to put it all right – but there’s going to be no cavalry to ride to the rescue, no charismatic figurehead is going to appear, it’s down to the solidarity of the citizens using their collective democratic voice. Which they still have, despite attempts to curtail it. And let’s face it, a sit-in a Democratic congressperson’s office would in theory be much less likely to get you beaten and jailed than if done on the White House lawn.
Oh yes, and no pressure or anything, Americans, but those of us in the rest of the world who are unable to directly influence the Democrats would appreciate a bit of speed on this -preferably before Iran gets nuked into glass, the whole Middle East goes up in flames and a worldwide, decades-long Sunni-Shia war is provoked, please. You’d be doing the rest of the world a service. Cheney is a danger to everyone.
Although domestic US politics has a massive ripple effect on planetary politics the rest of don’t get a vote: all we can do is cheer or jeer from the sidelines. I think I can safely speak for many other non-USAnians when I say that the current US situation is deeply sinister and threatening on a global level, not just to Americans.
