A Look At Cheney’s Relentless Pursuit of Executive Power
It’s a good bet that when future historians examine the Bush administration, they will spend more time plumbing the mysteries of Vice President Dick Cheney than anyone else.This is, quite simply, because Cheney is the most fascinating figure in it. He is the soul of this administration’s relentless pursuit of greater executive power. He is its architect and commander. George Bush became a willing participant when apprised of the effort. Beyond issues like Iraq and tax cuts, this unprecedented assault will be the hallmark of the Bush legacy.
“Cheney’s Law,” which airs tonight [check your local listings], charts the 30-year saga of Cheney’s efforts to expand White House power at the expense of Congress in particular. There is no earthshaking news here, but veteran documentarian Michael Kirk, who wrote, produced, and directed this program, provides a strong superstructure from which to connect the dots in Cheney’s defining commitment.
This is a sophisticated program for political junkies and students of government. It provides an insider’s view of Cheney’s secretive campaign to create an imperial presidency. Kirk has assembled a sharp, knowing group of experts, from former presidential adviser David Gergen to Washington Post crackerjack reporter Bart Gellman, for judgment and informed observation on the story.
Still, “Cheney’s Law” is an odd choice to begin the new season of “Frontline” because so much of the ground has been covered before - nowhere better that Kirk’s excellent and exhaustive “The Dark Side” about Cheney on “Frontline” last year. So what’s left to say?
For many, not much. We already know about Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, the shredding of Geneva Convention rules governing treatment of prisoners, the dramatic scene at then-Attorney General John Ashcroft’s hospital room.
So a lot of viewers will find what they glean tonight to be incremental. (”Frontline” also has the bad fortune to go up against the Sox at Cleveland tonight.) By the end of this program, many will be praying that “Frontline” will close the book on this guy.
That said, we learn more about David Addington, Cheney’s shadowy and powerful legal counsel who has worked seamlessly with Cheney to push his agenda. (With the departure of Scooter Libby, Addington is now Cheney’s chief of staff.) A former CIA lawyer, he is, in the words of New Yorker writer Jane Mayer, “the Picasso of signing statements,” referring to the documents signed by presidents that negate parts of completed legislation.
Kirk also gives us a clear view of the axis between Cheney/Addington and John Yoo. Yoo was the young Justice Department lawyer whom, according to New York Times reporter Scott Shane, Ashcroft called “Dr. Yes” for his pliancy to accommodate White House demands for legal opinions supporting its actions. It remains altogether unnerving to hear Yoo dismiss the relevance of the Geneva Convention in much the same way someone argues about the right-on-red traffic rule.
Ashcroft is a more complicated case. Legions of civil libertarians despise him for his actions while attorney general. But his detractors may find themselves wondering: Do we have to like him now?
Ashcroft showed great integrity while gravely ill with acute pancreatitis. He held strong in his hospital bed against pressure from White House emissaries Andrew Card and Alberto Gonzales for him to reauthorize a statute permitting eavesdropping on Americans by the federal government without a court order.
Jack Goldsmith, who briefly ran the powerful Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department before leaving at the end of Bush’s first term, was also there. He recalls Ashcroft, looking ghastly, rising up in his hospital bed and with great clarity explaining to Card and Gonzales why he would not approve the program. “He read them a bit of the riot act,” says Goldsmith.
In the end, notes The New Yorker’s Mayer, while the Oval Office is traditionally the center of action, “The strange thing about this administration is all of the most crucial decisions seem to be taking place in the vice president’s office, or even the vice president’s counsel’s office.”
© 2007 The Boston Globe
But don’t forget, he’ll shoot you in the face if he’s drunk.
Cheney weaseled his way into the government through the least populated state (cheapest way to get in)and has ended up virtually running the government, all three branches. What kind of system would allow this to happen? What happened to “serve your country”? It seems that everyone today goes to Washington to pursue a self-serving career. How many former politicians are now professional lobbyists? Pretty soon in D.C. everyone in D.C. will be a politician or a lobbyist. We the people are visitors in our own Capital. And the results are painfully obvious.
Hoa binh
Is it better that the Chimp use his own intellect to take decisions that probably result in utter chaos or that the veep decides and the result is a little-less-than-utter chaos?
I would say Bush had the above outlined to him then agreed to subordinate his powers to Cheney.
The header reads: “A Look At Cheney’s Relentless Pursuit of Executive Power” -but I only have to look at the photograph…
Take another look at that photo above. This is not a picture of one beloved by the Gods, this is a photo of one who will be damned for all eternity for whipping up such a maelstrom of calamitous ruin for the human race.
Look upon him now, and maybe feel even a morsel of pity? -for he has damned and condemned himself to the *greatest* possible misery.
Look now, for very soon he’ll be dead, and then for him the ‘fun’ REALLY begins…
Bye-bye Cheney, - you contemptible, ignorant, despicable old fool, you’ll very soon be reaping every noxious weed-seed you’ve sown. What a bitter harvest awaits you.
~ I envy you not.
Bush is only one heartbeat away from really being president…
I can think of no one in the halls of United States History (had our Constitution not been torn) who would have been more eligible for prosecution for high crimes and treason against the people and their democratic governance of the United States of America than Richard Cheney. In his quest, he has intentionally betrayed the Consitution and the American people, plotted to subvert and shut down our open and celebrated forms of governance — and used cruel and brutal police and military powers to do it. His not being prosecuted and held accountable merely opens the door wider for the next corrupted, bullying soul who stands in line. What this creature has done to humanity around the world, nature and our planet will forever rank him among the most insidious of self-serving sociopaths to occupy public office. From day one, his has been a path of self-service built on the backs of those he has condemned to lives of suffering — whether through the barrel of his own, personal shotgun — or through the stolen offices he has occupied. What a cruel and pathetic man. How sad he pushed himself into our lives and world.
I don’t know about after-life. But if there is such a thing — I truly hope he is directly handed what he handed to others in this world.
yup, Cheney is as fascinating as………HITLER.
I never thought I’d miss Nixon.
I really would not count on some mythical actors in ancient Hebrew stories to bring justice to Cheney. I think instead that, at the moment of his natural death, his brain must be removed and kept alive so that electrodes can be implanted in its pain centers and pain at the highest magnitudes, without destroying the tissue, can be inflicted on his brain for as many years as it can be kept alive. Soon technology will likely provide us with the ability to impose a hellish afterlife on miscreants, and Cheney would be a perfect fit to be the first to suffer such punishment.
here’s an outline for a sci-fi story free for the taking:
archaeologists in 1896 unearth evidence of extraterrestrial origin proving the impossibility of the existence of a supreme being; the scientists are murdered, the evidence is destroyed, and the myth of divine justice is used cynically to keep actual here-and-now justice “off the table.”
try as i might, i can’t think of any other reason self-described “christians” can do the things they do.
Who’s the chimp?
I thought a human being was in office.
I wish a chimp was there.
“archaeologists in 1896 unearth evidence of extraterrestrial origin proving the impossibility of the existence of a supreme being”
How does that prove the impossibility of a supreme being? it is accepted science that every element heavier than hydrogen is of extraterrestrial origin - blown out from past generations of long dead stars stars and supernovae over the past 15 BY or so. So, our bodies, rocks, air, and water are nearly all star-stuff of extraterrestrial origin. These facts haven’t changed humans religious beliefs any. There are many physicists that are still Christian, Hindu, Muslim and Jew (expecially Jew, but the Hindus are catching up)
re PJD 3:31pm
the “fi” in “sci-fi” stands for “fiction.” sorry you missed my point.
I understand, but I always likes Douglas Adam’s idea of the discovery of the Babelfish being the final, clinching proof of the non-existence god. I’ll end my digressions now.
It will be interesting to see just how fast the Democrats (if they obtain the presidency) “do the right thing” and give up all the presidential power that Cheney has accumulated in the office to the Republican congress — that is the nature of the wimpy, freaky-deaky Democrats. In the name of balanced government and fairness they will cede all their power to the right wing. If they lose the presidency again they should just close up shop and admit that there is a permanent Republican majority and get ready for the concentration camps. Hillary’s apparent capture of the nomination will ensure either a resounding loss or her conversion (confirmation?) as a new Republican.
Anyone consider the possibility that the guy in the picture above hasn’t already paid a fortune (which he can easily afford) to have himself frozen when he dies; planing to come back at a time when medical science can fix him up like new, and he’ll be able to take over the reins in the position of head of the world that he’s been working so hard for so long to put into place? All it’ll take is to keep puppets like the one he now controls in office keeping his seat warm, and making sure nothing goes back to the way it used to be.
Wilmoor: That is a really scary thought.
Wilmoor: Sorry to burst your bubble on the technodream of cryonics. It’s junk. Every person who was so treated will melt like a popsicle. Every cell in their bodies have been irreperable damaged by the formation of ice crystals. As the future medicos would try to thaw the person out, all they would be getting is a meat slushie dripping off a skeleton. That’s what happened to Walt Disney when the place he was stored in had the power cut because of unpaid bills.
As for Cheney, The quickest end for him would be a commercial de-gaussing unit passed over his pacemaker…
Forget the Inaugural Ball, they’ll be dancing in the streete when this crook and the idiot president are gone. And I predict that they will disappear from public and private view as NO ONE will pay a penny to hear them speak. Nor would anyone want to listen unless they CONFESS to their crimes. And if the next congress doesn’t repeal the Patriot Act and get rid of Homeland Security and the Military Commissions BIll, then let them enforce the hell of it on Bush and Cheney and see how they like their freedoms restricted. You know what would shake ‘em up? Have one of the presidential candidates declare that as president he/she will consider these guys a terrorist threat and lock ‘em up forever.
According to the other thread he has already come back as Nancy Pelosi.
I pity the nation that KNOWINGLY elected the team for the second time and as his trainee said in his inagural speech, granted them the political Capital they did not have when they were selecetd by ONE vote the first time.
I pity the man or woman in the Supreme court– that 5th member who cast the deciding vote. I wonder if he/she has any sleepless nights.
Perhaps the Nation was too busy paying the mortgages, buying bigger cars, taking juniors from one after school program to the next, watching the Sox in Cleveland, Brittney on the Scene, Paris Hilton going or coming out of jail, OJ committing more crimes ………..to notice who is being elected for the second time.
As despicable as Cheney is, what concerns me more is that his usurpation of executive power did not happen in a vacuum. How is it that so many have allowed, or even helped, the development of the “imperial presidency”. Cheney’s eventual and welcomed departure will not put an end to the damage done.
Every day that passes without a terrorist attack on our soil brings us a day closer to finally being rid of this Stalinist abomination called the Bush Regime. However, should such an attack, real or rigged, take place, what is left of democracy in this nation will probably be finished. Above all, Cheney does not want to give up power. Bush may desire nothing more that to be the Commissioner of Baseball and King of the Shitfaces but Cheney wants to hang on and on and on. Once out of power, Cheney faces dribbling away out of this life from death by massive heart attack. The thought of this is like a proctologist’s finger up his ass; it is unbearable. Don’t expect him or his pissy lapdog George Wanker Bush to go quietly. Have your passport up to date and be ready to run, for the lists of enemies of the state compiled by this regime must be lengthy, including everyone who’s ever looked at this website.
Two DUI’s and an assault with a deadly weapon while drunk. What a guy to have in charge.
Lynn Cheney was on NPR this morning talking about her beloved dick. It was hilarious. It sounds like the whole family is/was on the sauce. I guess you’d have to be to live with a monster like him.
“Antonin G. Scalia, “arguably the Court’s most colorful jurist today,” has conspired with Richard B. Cheney the 46th Vice-President of the United
States of America to subvert the U. S. Constitution. The question now is not only about these “ high crimes and misdemeanors,” but moreover about a larger effort that includes other justices of the court and other members of the Bush administration, members of Congress, their staff and lobbyists. The on-going subversion of law, today has cost many their civil liberties and all the purse of the US government.
Today the evidence is now broad and conclusive; it is only for the magistrate and the people to file the charges in our courts, in our congress and in our local and state governments.”
Galen:
I agree on two counts, but with a slightly different emphasis.
1. Neither the ogre pictured above, -nor anyone else, can ever be ‘unthawed’ from the cryogenic fridge, ‘coz once the Soul has decided the in-dwelling personality must be gone, no human can ever make it return to the body.
Human cry-o-genic preservation is a con.
2. We don’t even have to have a high-power de-gausser to finish him off, -even a mobile phone could do the trick. (He has to always remember to use his mobile phone in the hand furthest away from his pacemaker).
Failing that, a ‘tragic’ slip-up with one of the very many meds he takes daily would do the job quite nicely.
Then there’s an armed and gone-beserk White House staffer,
- maybe a hunting accident,
-autombile accidents,
anaphylactic shock,
Freak storms,
drowning in the tub…
…
Please, nicely ,,,
Additionally, it seems that Cheney and Obama are related. Mrs. “Medusa” Cheney apparently has confirmed that Dick and Barack are eighth cousins. I would shoot myself if I was related to the Cheneys.
Cheney is anything but ignorant. I used to listen to him speak at washington roundups amazed by his eloquent sophisticated, oratory and depth of knowledge of everything. The man is an abosolutely evil genuis. He single-handedly looted the U.S. treasury right in front of us, and disappeared anyone who got in his corporate way. He cut the balls off of congress and turned the media into a gov propaganda machine. He is the most powerful dangerous man alive.
He is a shawdow Ceasear, in charge of an unknown corporate shadow government.
KNOW YOUR ENEMY.
NATIONAL BOYCOTT
NATIONAL STRIKE
As blessthebeasts pointed out, Lynn Cheney was on NPR this morning. After hearing her chat amicably with Diane Rehm for an hour, I wondered if I would have to revise my view and declare her a human being. The provocative comments and questions came in a spate near the end, mostly from the listeners, on Iraq, torture, spying, science and all the rest (maybe even including the environment). She addressed not one of these issues but declared our economy to be in great shape.
Personally, I don’t think it’s so hot. Yup, I said to myself, Thank God I don’t have to change my view. She’s a monster and wife to a monster just as I thought.
I don’t doubt all that is said about Cheney, various President have allowed his influence. What does this say about them?
I don’t let Bush off the hook, is he dumb, is he crazy, is he a meglomanic? He is the president and the buck stops there.
SEYMOUR M. HERSH
The New Yorker staff writer talks with the magazine’s editor-in-chief, David Remnick. From the 2007 New Yorker Festival.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/festival/2007/HershRemnick
That’s why he is called Dick: he has has a head with no hair and no brain, pisses on or screws anyone he can, hangs around with an asshole and some nuts,and is supported by a Bush.
Democrats and Republicans are both paid by corporations to do their will, not our will. Will we even see a chance for another election? Read this scary story about Cheney and the B-52 nukes fiasco. http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_michael__071012_dick_cheney__26_vigila.htm
Galen October 16th, 2007 5:05 pm
Wilmoor: Sorry to burst your bubble on the technodream of cryonics. It’s junk. Every person who was so treated will melt like a popsicle. Every cell in their bodies have been irreperable damaged by the formation of ice crystals
Sounds like a good ending for Dickwad. His pacemaker failing just doesn’t sound as appealing. Melt you piece of Dick shit and take your dumbass wife with you! Leave the gay daughter, though. At least she’s semi human.
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM melted meat popsicle…….
Dick Cheney/
/
/
George Bush
Non accountability for any actions. Must be impeached.
Why pursue a secretive campaign to create an imperial presidency?
Laughed out loud. Also, thanks for the links.
Cheney is a very dark evil thing–not human.
True, we all know about Cheney’s secretive machinations, and hope he lands in hell for the evil he has done. But it was good to see Addington and Yoo exposed; the latter’s testimonies before Congress on the Geneva Convention, Guantanamo, and habeas corpus will become a historical classic - - the cold blooded words slipping smoothly from his cherubic face to justify abandonment of America’s greatest ideals in order to give an incompetent and morally challenged President dictatorial powers to torture and deny due process to possibly innocent Arabs. When I think of the great University of California at Berkeley honoring Yoo with a teaching position I shudder. Have they no shame?
Cheney is more a face of the present Admnistration, including our lame congress that allows or probably goes along with Cheney’s corporate schemes. And that goes for Bush too, as he had stated before that he wanted to be Dictator. Cheney portrays the greed and lust for power that is par and parcel of the whole brood. He’s just uglier although Bush is becoming more grotesque.
I think its interesting to consider the way that Cheney has been changed by his “service” after all these years. He has known Brent Scowcroft for many years and Scowcroft has stated that he doesn’t recognize Cheney anymore. I don’t believe that comment was intended as a compliment. I think that Dick Cheney is the perfect American version of what Lord Acton once said -
“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. He is a detestable force in American politics and I am deeply concerned that, even if Demos win big in 2008 that they will NOT tear down the terrible executive power structure that he has helped to create. Our Founding Fathers would have been appalled to see the government that they worked so hard and risked their lives for to be reduced to what we see today.
Cheney seems more Mussolini than Hitler. Would that he meet the same fate at the hands of his fellow citizens.