Cheney Tells Congress To Shove It
10 February 2006 1:46 pm by Taylor Marsh
Cheney Tells Congress To Shove It
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| Screw the Constitution. There's no upside in it for me. |
Currently circulating in the Senate
cloakrooms is word that Sen. Pat Roberts, Republican chairman of the Intelligence
Committee, brought up with Dick Cheney the administration's need to disclose
to Congress sensitive security information. “There is no upside for us
in that,” the vice president is reputed to have replied. … Raul
Damas, associate director of political affairs at the White House, has been
on the phone directly to Republican county chairmen to arrange local speeches
by active duty military personnel to talk about their experiences in Iraq. To
some Republican members, this unusual venture connotes a desire to go directly
to the people to sell the president's position without having to deal with members
of Congress. Inform
Congress?
The nexus of the power grab of the executive branch is Vice President
Dick Cheney, with the evidence to prove that belief mounting every day.
Pillar, now retired, just spoke with Blitzer on CNN, and slapped
down the false story peddled by Republicans that the intelligence community
wasn't pressured to give Bush and Cheney the evidence they wanted so they could
invade Iraq. At issue obviously was the Senate Intel's report, which stated
that the intel community was not bullied, something Dick Cheney has repeated
ad nauseam. Pillar was emphatic that the intelligence community absolutely were
pressured to turn their findings towards an overblown assessment of Iraq's WMD
threat, but “subtly.” Analysts changed caveats and by the simple edit
of a word or phrase, the analyst could make Iraq sound more lethal than it was,
which was Bush and Cheney's goal.
When Robert Novak asked Senator Roberts about Dick Cheney's comment
above, Roberts refused to talk about the vice president's remarks. The vice president has denied nothing in the last days and Roberts isn't denying what Cheney said either. Both statements
say so much.
As an aside, Novak's impression of Gonzales doesn't go to my Hardy
Boy analogy, however, Novak admits that Gonzales is “not the most astute
witness for the administration.” It's the understatement of the week.
Vice President Dick Cheney believes that if there is no “upside,”
the executive branch can simply ignore what will not benefit President Bush
or the presidency, as it exists as an institution. Screw the Constitution. We learned that conclusively
recently, with the revelation that Libby was told to leak classified information,
more than once, by his superiors, which had to be either Dick Cheney or President
Bush. I'll bet on Dick Cheney every time. What did the president know comes
later.
In line with Cheney's tell Congress to shove it attitude comes
the veteran speech propaganda plan (my name for it). Raul Damas' decision to
dispatch active duty military personnel, leaving Republicans who control Congress
completely out of the loop, to give speeches around the country is another way
of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush saying that Congress doesn't matter.
It's obvious that Bush and Cheney believe they can do anything
they want, because the Republican controlled Congress has been a feckless oversight
body since they took charge. The Democrats are left to scream, complain in print,
while generally remaining out of the loop on what's being done behind closed
doors.
Just how much power does Dick Cheney have? Someone needs to start
investigating and find out the answer to that question.
