Bush Cowed as Cheney Brazenly Defies Constitution

This is infinitely worse than shooting a man in the face while drinking and then lying about it. The Bush Administration today refused to answer whether Richard B. Cheney is or is not a member of the Executive Branch and therefore subject to the binding Executive Orders of the President of the United States. Cheney’s entire defense for his culpability in the leak of a CIA agent’s identity rests on claiming that an Executive Order on classification procedures gave him the power to declassify at will; now he has been caught refusing to comply with Executive Orders on classification procedures. Not to mention claims of “Executive Privilege” from a man who says he’s not part of the Executive branch. Today when confronted with some of the many contradictions caused by Cheney’s lawless behavior, the White House refused to even answer the simple question of whether Cheney is part of the Executive branch of government.

This story was broken yesterday by Henry Waxman and goes to the heart of the Constitution and the National Security of the United States. It’s as real and as substantive as Watergate.

There’s only one President; no matter how much of a chickenshit GWB is, Cheney is not allowed to have his own interpretation of the Constitution separate from that of the President, who gave him a legal order years ago which Cheney decided to defy and refuses to back down.