Cheney: No Executive Privilege
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel says he will tack on an amendment to an executive spending bill that will freeze funds for Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and official residence until he determines whether he belongs to the executive or legislative branch of government.
The Vice President exempted his office from the presidential order establishing government-wide procedures for safeguarding classified national security information, insisting his office is not an "entity within the executive branch."
Cheney says as President of the Senate, he and his staff are governed by the legislative branch.
According to the Washington Post, President Bush said the law does not apply to Cheney or his staff.
If that is the case, so be it.
That would mean that information regarding the energy task force meetings, Halliburton and Scooter Libby no longer falls under executive privilege. Cheney had conveniently invoked executive privilege to evade testimony and prevent the release of documents.
Let the President of the Senate answer to Senate rules.
I can only assume Patrick Fitzgerald is smiling somewhere.
There’s not enough room to give “the Fed’s” timely, clear, and concise take on Mr Cheney’s bizarre interpretation of executive privilege and the promise of access to a 7 yr landscape littered with the most sensitive operational directives of this Administration, the attention it deserves. Note to the Democratic leadership, however: They were on it before the newscycle had ended. Each day the Congress goes head to head with a diminished GOP whose only goal seems to end the President’s drift into approval ratings smaller than his neck size. But the Democrats have yet to build a comprehensive frame that: 1) addresses the Republican fall and 2) gives America at large something to latch on to.
Yes the Alberto Gonzales “fish in a barrel shooting contest”, had some great moments and thanks to James Comey Democratic operatives can all sleep easier knowing the President is not tapping Democratic headquarters, just the whole country.
But the party as a whole has just been handed a very strong pathway through some very good reporting. Regardless of whether the documents are made public, Supreme Court kicked it down once, the issue at the center – particularly oil routes and national security in the case of the ETF – establishes a baseline by which to measure the changed nature of the GOP.
In the past 7 years the GOP has completely abdicated its presumed prowess on national security, reducing every conflict’s solution to military attack. Iraq, then, was hardly an aberration. It was the blueprint for crisis for a party that has lost its way: once the party of national security; now simply the party of war.
War has been the solution to every crisis since 2001. In all probability these document back up at least a portion of this theory, but recent missteps over North Korean and Iranian intelligence where the President was forced to walk back initial assertion of immediate threat have defined the Republican Party as a strike first; question later organization.
It would make sense that developing a national plan to take back the market cornered for decades on national security is good politics and good policy, epecially now that voters have seen the correlation between cause and effect at home and abroad.
But only once the Republicans approach to war as a first, second and last resort is defined. And remember, you don’t become one of the worst parties in history without a little help from the other side. So Democrats might do well to think this one through.
The rest is up to you.
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Here are some qoutes I thought you might enjoy in regards to the unsuprisisng Libby pardon..
Snow said yesterday that the White House feels it is on safe legal ground in contending that Libby will serve two years of probation, despite questions now being raised by Judge Reggie Walton, who issued an order Tuesday suggesting Libby cannot serve any probation since he never served any prison time before the commutation.
"Strictly construed, the statute authorizing the imposition of supervised release indicates that such release should occur only after the defendant has already served a term of imprisonment," Walton wrote.
After first suggesting he wasn't sure, Snow said White House counsel Fred Fielding had "absolutely" checked on this question before the president signed off on the commutation.
Kind Regards,
Robert
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That's interesting.....
If Cheney is of that opinion, why would he be pushing for Title I (third column) of Senate Amendment S.7793 (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2008_record&page=S7793&position=all) to Senate File S3335 (http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/leg/LEG%202008/072408%20S3335%20legislative%20language.pdf), which is the bill to extend IRS tax credits for such things as solar and wind energy?
As you will notice in S.7793, Title I, Cheney is looking for lifelong Secret Service protection for himself and his family. Hmmmmm; go figure. Why would he want that???
And what in the hiccups does VP protection have to do with tax credits?
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