American’s Unitary Executive, STILL a 4th Branch of Govt unto himself

(9 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Confirmed: Cheney’s Role in Approving Torture

Edward M. Gomez; SFGate, Dec 17 2008

“… Dick Cheney isn’t sorry about any of it.” In his ABC News interview he “betrayed no second thoughts – and certainly no remorse – about the policies pursued by the administration that he both served and, according to some, led.

Cheney’s dark side – and ours

Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe Columnist, Sep 1, 2009

But Cheney’s role is an old, if still developing story. After all, he warned us five days after Sept. 11 that our government would work on the “dark side.” He told the late Tim Russert, “We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies.” …

These days, we can’t stop hearing the dire warnings from the X-President, behind the President. Somehow he still thinks, he’s in Charge, or something. And the Media, just let’s him get away with this mass delusion.

Funny, how National Security Experts, think that the Obama Administration is making in-roads, where the Cheney Administration, just made enemies and malcontents:

Obama more successful on terrorism – security adviser

Paul Simao, Reuters — Aug 31, 2009

WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (Reuters) – The United States is having more success fighting terrorism under President Barack Obama partly because of his “radically different” approach to foreign policy, National security adviser Jim Jones said on Monday.

In an interview with ABC News, Jones said Obama’s efforts to reach out to world leaders and improve relations with law enforcement agencies had made it easier to track and kill terrorists than during the Bush administration.

“We have better human intelligence. We know where the terrorists are moving,” Jones told ABC.

“Because of the dialogue and the tone of the dialogue between us and our friends and allies … the trend line against terrorism is positive,” he added.

Jones spoke a day after former Vice President Dick Cheney said he has serious doubts about the extent to which Obama understood and is prepared to do what is needed to defend the United States from attack.

Like I said, Cheney must think he is still in charge — he certainly isn’t letting the Facts get in the way, of his sanctimonious, avuncular, dire warnings and reprimands.  

Could it be the Uncle Dick still harbors “hard feelings” about the “Falling Out” that him and George W. had in their second term? Could it be W. woke up to that fact, that he was being led down the garden path? Only to be left, to reap the whirlwind?

Cheney Uncloaks His Frustration With Bush

Barton Gellman, Washington Post Staff Writer — Aug 13, 2009

Cheney’s disappointment with the former president surfaced recently in one of the informal conversations he is holding to discuss the book with authors, diplomats, policy experts and past colleagues. By habit, he listens more than he talks, but Cheney broke form when asked about his regrets.

“In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him,” said a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney’s reply. “He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney’s advice. He’d showed an independence that Cheney didn’t see coming. It was clear that Cheney’s doctrine was cast-iron strength at all times — never apologize, never explain — and Bush moved toward the conciliatory.”

The two men maintain respectful ties, speaking on the telephone now and then, though aides to both said they were never quite friends. But there is a sting in Cheney’s critique, because he views concessions to public sentiment as moral weakness. After years of praising Bush as a man of resolve, Cheney now intimates that the former president turned out to be more like an ordinary politician in the end.

Of course Richard “Darth” Cheney, was never one to let something as trivial as “public sentiment” to get in the way!

As we see in this next video, “Cheney does not care that 2/3 of Americans want out of Iraq”.

Cheney to Americans: I don’t care what you think



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Martha Raddatz: 2/3 of Americans say it’s not worth fighting …

Cheney: SO?

Martha Raddatz: So? … you don’t care what the American People think?

Cheney: No. I think, you can not be, blown off course, by the fluctuations in the Public Opinion Polls.

Not only did Cheney see himself as “above the petty nuances of Public Polls” — he also seen himself, and still does see himself, as someone “Above the Law”!

Keith Olbermann: Dick Cheney Above the Law



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Keith Olbermann: (circa mid-2007)

VP Office claimed it was exempt from an Executive Order, requiring all of the Executive Branch to report all of its handling of Classified Information, to a Federal Office known as ISOO (Information Security Oversight Office). His rationale was that he was not part of the Executive Branch. Today that rationale flipped 180 degrees, when spokesperson Perino revealed that Mr Cheney has now evolved to a point where he is not just in the Executive Branch, but is indistinguishable from the President himself.

[…]

The President himself […] has mostly been in compliance with ISOO. Why? His Executive Order specifically says that it applies to quote:

“any ‘Executive agency’, … any ‘Military department’ and any other entity within the Executive Branch.”

[…]

His non-compliance with the Order, leaves Cheney only one argument for non-compliance: that he is no longer ‘an Entity’ of any kind, having evolved at last into a literal ‘Shadow Government’ unto himself.

Executive Order 13992

Information Security Oversight Office  (ISOO)

Of course Cheney has never been one for respecting the Rule of Law, nor the Will of the People. Cheney believes in acquiring Power, for Power’s sake, as his legal maneuverings, have proven out, time and time again:

In Cheney’s Shadow, Counsel Pushes the Conservative Cause

By Dana Milbank, Washington Post — October 11, 2004

Since he took office, Vice President Cheney has led the Bush administration’s effort to increase the power of the presidency. “I have repeatedly seen an erosion of the powers and the ability of the president of the United States to do his job,” he said after a year in office, calling it “wrong” for past presidents to yield to congressional demands.

…

Cheney has tried to increase executive power with a series of bold actions — some so audacious that even conservatives on the Supreme Court sympathetic to Cheney’s view have rejected them as overreaching.

The vice president’s point man in this is longtime aide David Addington, who serves as Cheney’s top lawyer.

…

The unitary executive notion can be found in the torture memo. “In light of the president’s complete authority over the conduct of war, without a clear statement otherwise, criminal statutes are not read as infringing on the president’s ultimate authority in these areas,” the memo said. Prohibitions on torture “must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander-in-chief authority. . . . Congress may no more regulate the president’s ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield.” The same would go for “federal officials acting pursuant to the president’s constitutional authority.”

That was then.

This is now … and once again, it seems that our “Unitary Executive” of presidencies past, is still at it — passing judgment on all, but himself; casting aspersions and pronouncements, as if he were still a secret king. (Imagine Al Gore, speaking out in such a manner, the Media would have none of it no doubt.)

Yet, darkman, Dick Cheney is apparently above reproach, above investigation, and above all else — above the law.

We shall not question the actions of the former VP.

Not Now … Not ever!

Because according to the VEEP’s own talking points, he is outside of the Executive Branch, in fact there was a time when VP Dick claimed to be his own, exclusive 4th Branch of Government!

White House’s Perino: Veep’s Role in the Gov’t is “Unique”

By Spencer Ackerman, TPM – June 22, 2007

Never in the history of the United States has anyone contended that the Vice President is outside the executive branch. Never. […]

But then, in 2004, Dick Cheney needed to circumvent the National Archives’ oversight of how his office handles classified information, and suddenly the vice president hovers in the constitutional equivalent of Purgatory, belonging to neither the executive nor the legislative branches.

It’s simply amazing that the shadowy grand Wizard, the man behind the GWOT Curtain, for much of the last 8 years, is still getting away with it — with his “extra-Constitutional” shtick, after all these years!

Popping in and out, of the National Dialog on a whim, should be reserved for Statesmen and Diplomats — NOT diabolical Power-grabbers — who see it fit to invent ‘their own’ Branches of Government! — Entirely for the sake of avoiding Accountability, avoiding Oversight; for shrinking from the light of Day.

Perhaps, maybe it IS time we finally take Press Secretary Perino advice on this tricky, taboo, subject?

Dana Perino: What I know, and I’m not a lawyer, and this is an interesting constitutional question that legal scholars can debate …

Indeed, maybe it IS finally time, for those “Legal Counsels” to weigh in, on this Constitutional debate about that trivial issue of the “Separation of Powers”?

Special Prosecutor Time, anyone?

Maybe, it IS finally time, for Chatterbox Cheney to speak ON THE Record, once and for all, with his hand on the Bible. Assuming that he wouldn’t scorch his soul in the process … then again that might be worth the price of admission too!