Cheney Plays Julius Caesar and Like Then Must be Stopped (Legally)
I have been arguing for years at TPM Cafe and in other writing that Vice President Cheney had done more than any other single person in the government -- including the President of the United States -- to plant acolytes and followers of his throughout the national security bureaucracy. He has had spies and apparatchiks in the Departments of State and Defense, in the Directorate of National Intelligence, the National Security Agency and the CIA, and elsewhere in government.
John Bolton was one of these at the State Department, as was Robert Joseph -- both of whom held the position of Under Secretary of State for International Security and Arms Control.
Finally, there is a breath-taking, disturbing four-part series in the Washington Post written by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker detailing the most outrageous usurpation of power that this nation has seen in decades, if not in its history. The series is on Cheney's Rasputin abilities and methodologies and is titled "Angler," the term the Secret Service uses to identify the Vice President.
Most outrageous is Cheney's recent claim that his office is not in the Executive Branch and is not an agency of government that fits within the matrix of checks and balances that affect the presidency.
If that absurd assertion is allowed to stand, then the Office of Vice President must be de-funded by Congress immediately, and all powers related to the Vice President immediately made null. (See Todd Gitlin's piece)
If the Vice President thinks that there is no authority to which he reports, then he has committed a high crime against this nation and its democracy.
Every word of this long series should be absorbed. Some of what it reports is new and much not -- but it provides important validation for what some writers -- including those at this blog and others like Sidney Blumenthal have been describing for a very long time.
On January 7, 2007, I wrote a piece at The Washington Note arguing that long time Washington Post writer Bob Woodward had done the nation a great disservice in his book State of Denial by getting so much of the inside story on the Iraq War right -- and then depicting Cheney as a relatively uninfluential, eccentric character.
I'm very pleased to see that the Post's own team has invalidated Woodward's work with regard to the role and influence of this Office of the Vice President.
I would also like to direct readers to this TWN piece from a while back, "Can Cheney be His Own Declassification Machine?"
It is clear now, in retrospect that Cheney has worked hard to write in the "Office of the Vice President" as a body with specific statutory authority that does not derive from the Presidency as his machinations on modifying Executive Orders on "Classified National Security Information."
Republicans and Democrats in Congress should be unifying now on all fronts to immediately contain the power of Cheney and his team if they in fact do not feel that there are any controls on them that should be acknowledged.
Bush was never a Julius Caesar type. Cheney, however, is.
-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note
You're right. Bush doesn't have the brains to be Caesar. But don't you think it's a bit sympathetic to Cheney to refer to him as anything less than Khan or Stalin?
June 28, 2007 6:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
I recognize Clemons is right about Woodward - but what's Woodward's angle this time? In his first two books, he "overlooked" the deceptions and political blackmail Bush/Cheney applied in the rush to war in 2002.
In 'State of Denial', Woodward seemed to turn on his old friends. But Clemons is right, Woodward held back when it came to discussing Cheney's omnipresent role.
Who is Woodward covering for? What forces have led the 'elite' to support Cheney's power-grab? As Tom Ricks pointed out in 'Fiasco', the failure of the Bush admin. was only possible due to systematic failures in Congress, the press, and upper-echelon military.
Likewise, Cheney could not have done what we now can all see, without a great deal of cooperation, starting with Woodward's but including hundreds or thousands of others. Can someone explain how this really works?
June 28, 2007 7:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
What a pudding-headed statement! How frustrating to have otherwise well-respected liberal leaders like you making ridiculous assertions like this.
What Cheney thinks can not be any sort of "high crime". It's what Cheney *does* that is important. Please sharpen your thinking! Lay out a bill of particulars, so that we can rally the political support necessary to impeach this bastard.
June 28, 2007 7:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
So, none of us over here are surprised, but we are losing hope that the Democrats are in congress to govern rather than play footsie with the lobbiests.
June 28, 2007 7:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
The single most effective thing we can do is to support Dennis Kuchinich's bill to impeach Cheney. The bill to cut his funding is also helpful; a good tactic. Cheney is the nexus of all the evil emanating from this criminal regime. Impeachment is too good for him, however it is the least we can do to protect the republic. Urge your congressperson to be a co-sponser - I have.
UA
June 28, 2007 7:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was thinking Stalin, as well.
Stalin had exactly the same kind of gift for backroom manipulations of the bureaucracy. That is how he rose to power. He was a nobody from Georgia, but, like Cheney, he learned the landscape of government intimately and always knew exactly which levers to apply pressure to.
And, like our Vice President, he turned a minor, unimportant position (in his case it was the position of General Secretary of the Central Committee) into a seat of enormous power.
Of course Cheney's penchant for political retribution doesn't rise nearly to the level of Stalin's. But, hey, let's give him some time!
June 28, 2007 7:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Historical analogies are fun, but Cheney -- aged 66, and working inside a stable electoral structure -- will never establish himself or any successors as permanent Leader. His goals are likely therefore be much more local, and he has a year and half to achieve them. It is implausible to assume that he will be running out the clock. This suggest that more attention should be focused on the near future, less on the long-term prospects evoked by images of emperors past.
June 28, 2007 7:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Impeach.
June 28, 2007 7:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well said. Cheney will be at his most dangerous in the last months of the regime. He has a destructive agenda from a lifetime of resentment of democracy and accountability and will be working extra hard behind the scenes to achieve it. He can't be allowed to hide from the bright light shining on him now.
June 28, 2007 8:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
DickTater here.
Steve Clemons:
If the Vice President thinks that there is no authority to which he reports, then he has committed a high crime against this nation and its democracy.
-- Andrew Golis
more parsing.More half-measures. This is NOT calling a spade a spade.
What TheCheney has done IS a crime. Not what he thinks. Not what he asserts. It is what he HAS DONE.
Clemons may come close to making a bold statement, but DOES NOT. Why not say TheCheney was found hunkering over the body of a small child, blood dripping from his mouth as he gobbles up big chunks of the carcasse. But he CLAIMS he was just hungry. CLAIMS a crime didn't really happen.
Or are we going to call a spade a spade? Police don't put you in front of a judge and say this guy doesn't THINK he did anything wrong. This guy ASSERTS that he didn't do anything wrong. They don't use absurd Addingtonisms and say "Judge, this guy's lawyer claims he isn't a member of the human race and therefore not subject to human laws....what dya say judge, let's let him go."
No, they say "we caught him committing a crime."
Think Regionally. Act Regionally
June 28, 2007 8:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think Cheney can be stopped legally.
He has been busy stacking the courts with GOP partisans from the Federalist Society. As blogger Digby wrote these judges are like GOP sleeper cells. They can be activated anytime a GOP politician finds himself in a legal tight spot. They can be counted on to bail Cheney.
June 28, 2007 8:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wish Cheney were playing Caesar! Caesar, whatever his faults, was (for his time) a liberal and on the side on the common people against the Roman oligarchs. He only rebelled against the Senate when his enemies left him no choice. As Roman dictators go, Cheney is closer to the reactionary Sulla, though I doubt he shall spend his retirement in one big gay drinking bout as Sulla did.
June 28, 2007 9:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't understand the push to de-fund the OVP. Doesn't that just add legitimacy to Cheney's claim, and in fact tacitly endorse it? Better to just throw the fothermuckerer's corrupt arse in jail as soon as humanly possible. I hear Scooter's looking for a bunkmate...
June 28, 2007 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
"If the Vice President thinks that there is no authority to which he reports, then he has committed a high crime against this nation and its democracy."
Cheney should definitely pay for his crimes, although the least of them are against "this nation and its democracy." However, thought crimes are not among them.
June 28, 2007 8:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here is a scary thought: what will happen if the new conservative majority on the Supreme Court sides with the Bush Administration and rules that Congress has no right to order subpoenas from Bush, Cheney or the executive branch?
Satellite Sky Blog
Find the Truth. Do Justice.
June 28, 2007 10:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
We will be screwed again... This is why the 2004 election was so important... But that is water over the dam.
June 29, 2007 6:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
And the answer to OkieLawyer's question is? Then, Cheney's done nothing wrong!
Don't like the answer? Then, take it up with Chief Justice Marshall!
June 29, 2007 7:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Please, lets not!
If you think about it, Stalin didn't wake up one day and decide "Hey, I'll think I'll become one of the worlds most ruthless Dictators". He grew up in authoritarian Tsarist Russia. His cruelty merely differed from his Tsarist predecessors in its scope and efficiency.
Cheney can't make that excuse. He had no predecessor in promoting American Torture. The worst thing is, his successors will.
-Dave Adams-
June 29, 2007 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dave,
Are you naive? Cheney worked in conjunction with Kissinger. Kissinger planned assassinations and torture throughout Central and South America. He is a one man War Crime. Kissinger appears to have learned his tricks from his not-so-distant German and Austrian predecessors.
The message is that we should be careful of the heritage of people we put in "leadership." Nazi->Kissinger->Cheney.
It is sometimes remarked that the Greeks "won" their cultural battles with Rome by losing their military battles with Rome. The Nazis lost their military battles with the US.
June 29, 2007 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't have the link, but I saw one that showed a very important precedent. Nixon's claim to Executive Priviledge was not allowed by the Supreme Court in the case of illegal activity.
It would be hard even for a velvet-tongued liar like Roberts to claim that this is a different type of case, as he did recently regarding Brown v Board of Education.
Jan
June 29, 2007 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink