Secret Cheney Can't Hide
Vice President Dick Cheney isn't part of the executive branch? Next, Prince William will claim that he isn't a member of the royal family.
Yes, Mr. Cheney's antics can be good for a laugh. Before his office dropped the ridiculous claim, Democrats, pretending to take him at his word, winked and said they'd remove financing for the veep's office from the executive-branch budget.
In that case, the vice president's self-evident contradiction was silly. But as revealed last week in a Washington Post series, the vice president's inability to recognize contradictions can be tragic and disastrous. The basic contradiction is this: With pathological secrecy, Mr. Cheney pursues his law-bending (at best) activities in the name of making America and the world safer. The effect has been the opposite.
The series begins with a stunning example of Mr. Cheney's influence. In the fall of 2001, the vice president presented to President Bush a sweeping proposal to give the president the power, on his own say-so, to detain any foreign terrorism suspect indefinitely and without any access to judicial review. From presentation to signed executive order took less than one hour.
The series offers example after example of Mr. Cheney working, often behind the scenes, to get his way on issues from executive power to environmental policy to capital gains tax cuts for the wealthy.
