Cheney & the Post, Part 1

The position of Vice President of the United States is a very, very strange one. It has no basic powers set out in our founding documents – or later law to my knowledge – save two. The VP acts as the president of the Senate and may cast a vote in instances of a tie vote of the whole Senate and the VP assumes the power of the president when the president is unable to fulfill his duties. In spite of this relative wasteland of responsibility, the president does not have the power to fire the VP. The VP can be removed from office through impeachment proceedings or resign.

VPs throughout American history have largely been powerless, often ceremonial figures. Prior to today, the most powerful VP was Walter Mondale. President Carter gave Mondale unprecedented power within his administration. Mondale, in turn, always used his power to promote the policies of the president. There was never a question of relative positions between the two men.

Today, we have a much different situation. VP Cheney is without a doubt the most powerful VP in history. President Bush gave him unprecedented authority even by Mondale standards at the start of his first term and Cheney’s sphere of influence both on and off the books has only grown since. What is more – and what is shocking – is that evidence is coming to light that the President has been unable to bring his VP to heal even on those occasions when he’s gone out of his way to do so. In essence, we have the proverbial “shadow government” in the Office of the Vice President, seemingly answerable to no one. (Indeed, the VP is now making the novel – and completely, unabashedly insane – claim that the VP is not part of the executive branch.* The Constitution weeps anew.)

The Washington Post is in the middle of a series of articles detailing VP Cheney and his role within the larger Bush Administration since 2001. There is not a lot of new information, but the series is doing a good job of putting a timeline together and linking events and scandals to one another. I will post links to the first several parts here and will provide a heads-up on the successive parts going forward. This is amazing – and amazingly disturbing – stuff and worth your time to stay informed.

Part 1: TPM and the Post

Part 2: TPM and the Post

Part 3: TPM and the Post

26 June 2007

*Cutting off funding for the VPs executive branch staff is the right way to battle this sort of despotism. We don’t want to cast validity over his argument, but we do want to curtail his grab for power. Forcing him to pay for his own staff – expensive even by the standards of his ill-gained fortune – may very well prove to be the leash necessary to do so. Some will, indeed some already have, decreed that this route is “partisan politics,” but it is in actuality simply protecting the Constitution when others who should do not. [Added later 26 June 2007]