Vice President Cheney doesn’t think the Office of the Vice President is a part of the Executive branch of our government.
Vice President Dick Cheney has asserted his office is not a part of the executive branch of the U.S. government, and therefore not bound by a presidential order governing the protection of classified information by government agencies, according to a new letter from Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to Cheney.
Bill Leonard, head of the government’s Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), told Waxman’s staff that Cheney’s office has refused to provide his staff with details regarding classified documents or submit to a routine inspection as required by presidential order, according to Waxman.
In pointed letters released today by Waxman, ISOO’s Leonard twice questioned Cheney’s office on its assertion it was exempt from the rules. He received no reply, but the vice president later tried to get rid of Leonard’s office entirely, according to Waxman.
Well, okay, then; my Grade 10 American Government class teacher back in 1969 was wrong: there are four branches of government: Legislative, Executive, Judicial, and Dick.
I am sure I’m not the only blogger to point out that if Mr. Cheney feels he isn’t part of the executive branch, he can no longer claim executive privilege and therefore all those secret little meetings he had with the oil company executives to come up with the administration’s energy policy aren’t covered under the privilege. So cough up, Dick; you can’t have it both ways.
I think it’s especially revealing that Mr. Cheney, when challenged on his refusal to open his leaking office to inspection, he threatened to shut down the inspectors. Tony Soprano couldn’t have said it better: “Nice little office you’ve got here, Mr. Leonard. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.”
By the way, didn’t we invade Iraq because the Bush adminstration claimed that Saddam Hussein refused to allow the UN inspectors in? Sounds like it’s time for a little pre-emptive invasion of our own to get rid of some Dick.
