Cheney DID NOT say he is no Longer a Member of the Executive Branch: The Real Story is Much Worse

[ProgressiveAmPatriot]

Cheney DID NOT say he is no Longer a Member of the Executive Branch: The Real Story is Much Worse
by a progressive American patriot at http://progressiveamericanpatriot.blogspot.com/">Progressive American Patriot
http://progressiveamericanpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/06/cheney-did-not-say-he-is-no-longer.html">Link to original[br />
The story is making its way around the internet that Cheney has said he is not a part of the executive branch. Hard as it is to believe, the real story is much worse. His office is quoted as saying that because he is a member of the both executive and the legislative branches, he is therefore not required to reply to a request by the National Archives for it comply with record keeping laws regarding the executive branch. The quote from the letter in question is "...the OVB spokesperson indicated, 'This has been reviewed and it's been determined that the reporting requirement does not apply to The Office of the Vice President, which has both legislative and executive functions.'"

http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20070621095027.pdf

Cheney did not say the law does not apply to him because he is not a member of the executive, he said it doesn't apply to him because he is both a member of the executive and a member of the legislature. This is an important distinction because it arrives at the point where there is an explicit contradiction within the statement. This is a step beyond outright lying (i.e. VP is not part of executive branch). The logic of this statement goes like this:

(1) Records law applies to the executive branch
(2) The Office of the Vice-President is in both the executive and legislative branch
<1,2> (3) The records law does not apply to VP

This logic could be applied to Senate rules as well, and could well be used to argue that no laws apply to him at all. It is the letter linked to above that takes this unbelievably faulty logic to its inevitable conclusion and brings us back to reality:

(1) Records law applies to the executive branch
(2) Records law does not apply to the Vice-President according to Vice-President
<1,2> (3) The Vice-President is not a member of the executive branch

And I am sure Democrats on the hill will be able to take it even further

<3> (4) The Vice-President lacks executive privilege

The conclusion of any logical person of course is that the Vice-President is insane and should be impeached. But let's be fair: he acknowledges being a part of the executive branch, he just thinks that this law should not apply to him because he is also a member of the legislative branch. I really don't know how The White House or Republicans, or the press is going to spin this. Then again, they could spin it the same way they sold torture. Just repeat something over and over again, have no shame, and eventually people will come to believe the big lie. Torture is patriotic when done for the right reasons. Global warming is a myth. Science is inconclusive on the subject. Constitutional experts disagree as to whether the Vice-President is exempt from laws governing the executive as he is a member of the executive and the legislature.

I swear to God they are going to find a "constitutional expert" to say that the Constitution is ambiguous on whether laws governing the executive apply to the VP. And the press is going to quote both sides in a "fair and balanced way." This is the problem with American journalism which teaches that there are two equal sides to any story. Crazy people with no shame come along and they justify crazy things by making things up and repeating them over and over and over until people start to believe the big lie. And the "fair and balanced" press just continues quoting both sides in an equal manner. Signing statements Bush style are no longer unprecedented attacks on the Constitution according to CNN. Why? Because that is what the White House says and every story has two equal sides. Cheney doesn't think the law applies to him. Democrats SAY the Constitution says otherwise. They disagree. Fair and balanced requires that we present both sides equally, thus Cheney gets quoted on an equal footing with sane people who think the law applies to them.

They've done it. They have done what Nixon couldn't do. They announce their criminal behavior in advance and claim it is morally just and they get away with it. Or when they classify their crimes and they get caught, they say after the fact that it was morally just and they get away with it. Then the press reports "the Democratic position," they broke the law, and the White House position, we are morally righteous in what we do so shut up and write our side of the story or we'll out your CIA wife. That of course isn't criminal. See, this is where Nixon screwed up. He acknowledged that if he had done what he was accused of doing, that it was wrong. Nixon's problem was he said he didn't do it. He should of just said, yeah I did it and it was legal, and it was good for democracy and stopped the communists and he could have had 8 years like Bush. Unbelievable. I am a member of the executive and legislative so the laws governing the executive do not apply to me. This statement can easily be changed to apply to the legislative branch. I am a member of the legislative and executive branches, so the laws governing the legislative branch do not apply to me. An 8th grade civics education makes these statements absurd.

Update: And indeed since writing this I have heard two NPR stories on this. The first said Cheney "exempted himself" and totally spun the story "fair and balanced." Even NPR was able to spin it! He failed to comply with the law, which is a polite way of saying he broke the law. He didn't have the power to "exempt himself." But according to NPR, it is a story of Democrats vs Cheney. They quoted him as saying that his office is not an entity in the executive branch and that was the end of the story. The "journalist" said it with a straight voice. Unbelievable. How can you say that without laughing at its absurdity? An updated NPR story didn't even mention Cheney's faulty logic. At least one constitutional scholar has been http://www.startribune.com/587/story/1261266.html">quoted as follows,

“The vice president is saying he doesn't have to follow the orders of the president," said Garrett Epps, a law professor at the University of Oregon. "That's a very interesting proposition." He said the lines have not been drawn that clearly: "The vice president spans, in some ways, the branches of government.”

I don’t think he knew the exact quote because he makes the actual quote sound patently absurd.

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