The WaPo’s R. Jeffrey Smith and Carol Leonnig, Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff, and the Post’s Dan Froomkin have all published compelling pieces over the last couple of days highlighting the way in which Scooter Libby’s trial is “boring in on” Dick Cheney’s role in the Plame scandal. Testimony from last week reinforced long-held suspicions that the Vice President was more actively involved with the pushback against Joseph Wilson than the White House had previously acknowledged.
And while this probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone, TPM’s David Kurtz helped the bigger picture yesterday in a terrific post.
Kurtz notes that he was “extremely skeptical” of the idea that Cheney was secretly running the executive branch, right up until the 9/11 Commission noted that the VP “had issued shootdown orders outside of the chain of command and then conspired with the President to conceal this fact from the Commission.” Since then, Kurtz explained, “I’ve gone from being open to the idea of an Imperial Vice Presidency to being convinced that historians will debate whether something approaching a Cheney-led coup d’etat has occurred.”
Last week, in trying to break the lock on who actually works in the OVP — which the Vice President refuses to reveal — the guys at Muckraker stumbled across this entry from a government directory known as the “Plum Book”:
The Vice Presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch, but is attached by the Constitution to the latter. The Vice Presidency performs functions in both the legislative branch (see article I, section 3 of the Constitution) and in the executive branch (see article II, and amendments XII and XXV, of the Constitution, and section 106 of title 3 of the United States Code).
It appears that Cheney’s office submitted this entry in lieu of a list of its employees, as federal agencies must do. It sounds like something Cheney’s current chief of staff, David Addington, might have written. Cheney and Addington have been the among the most powerful proponents of the theory of a “unitary executive,” but there are indications that they have also advanced, though less publicly, a theory of a constitutionally distinct and independent vice presidency.
Meet Dick Cheney — the independent, fourth-branch superpower of the United States government.
As Digby put it:
I had always known that Cheney was running the show, but I assumed he did it purely by using the power of the executive branch and manipulation of the president. I had no idea that he might have secretly carved out a previously unenumerated institution that derives its power from both the legislative and executive branches. What in the hell has really been going on in this administration?
Now seems like the ideal time to get an answer to that question. As we talked about last week, Cheney not only believes he should be able to keep his entire staff secret, he also runs a team of Bolshevik-like loyalists who have their own hyper-powerful White House operation.
Kurtz suggests the obvious: a congressional hearing (or two) on the constitutional role of the vice president.
From all indications, Cheney has amassed considerable power due to his experience and savvy vis-a-vis the President’s relative lack thereof. But that is a separate issue from the constitutional role of the OVP, and whether, or in what ways, various statutory regimens, particularly in the national security arena, apply to the OVP.
By custom and tradition, the Vice President’s role had been circumscribed by how little express power and authority the Constitution granted the position. Hence, all the jokes over the years about the vice presidency. But in a move that is decidedly anti-conservative, in the conventional sense, Cheney moved to fill the void. I fear that what we will eventually find are structural flaws that were deliberately exploited by the OVP, which in turn further undermined constitutional and statutory structures.
Still, I can’t help but be fascinated by the more pedestrian issue of how Cheney continues to assert himself so vigorously without running up against the ego of a cocksure President. How is it that Bush, who is so caught up in macho public demonstrations of his own personal strength and courage, can tolerate a shadow presidency within his own White House?
Actually, on that last point, the dynamic isn’t that hard to believe. Bush, for all of his misplaced arrogance, is probably aware of his deficiencies, and gladly turns to Cheney to do the “hard work.” You’ll remember, of course, that Bush refused to speak to the 9/11 Commission unless Cheney was there next to him, at the same time. One assumes Bush would let Cheney do presidential press conferences, too, if he thought he could get away with it.
The president probably tells himself he’s above all of the unpleasant details of governing, and gladly delegates serious responsibilities (which is to say, everything a president is supposed to do) to the old hand who tells him not to worry about anything. As Digby concluded, ” Arrogant morons are very easy to manipulate. You just tell them what to think and then tell them they thought of it.”