Addington: Cheney still isn’t part of the executive branch

June 26, 2008

Exactly one year ago tomorrow, the Office of the Vice President gave up on the notion that Dick Cheney isn’t really part of the executive branch. In the midst of an oversight fight regarding the handling of classified material, the OVP had made the absurd argument about Cheney’s branch, but on June 27, 2007, the Vice President’s team decided that was too ridiculous to keep repeating.

In fact, the next day, the NYT reported, “A White House official placed further distance from the dual role argument by adding that Mr. Cheney did not necessarily agree with it.”

So, all of this unpleasantness is behind us? We can finally agree that Cheney is the Vice President, and the Vice President is part of the executive branch? Apparently not. Cheney’s reclusive chief of staff, David Addington, told the House Judiciary Committee this afternoon that the VP is “attached” to the legislative branch.

The video shows Addington reading a 1961 memo describing the OVP as belonging “neither to the executive nor to the legislative branch.” Addington refused to go into any additional detail, saying only that Cheney is “attached” to the legislative branch. When Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) suggested that would make the Vice President a “barnacle,” Addington, disgusted, said he didn’t “consider the Constitution a barnacle.”

Just as an aside, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen any government official express the kind of contempt for Congress as I’ve seen from Addington today. Every response to every question is soaked in pure revulsion. I keep expecting him to spit at the members of the committee after every exchange.

But that aside, Addington’s argument about Cheney’s branch was silly when he first started pushing it, and it hasn’t improved with age.

TP’s Ali sets the record straight:

The assertion is ridiculous. President Bush and Cheney have themselves repeatedly tied the office of the President and Vice President together in the executive branch, not to mention the White House and the Senate websites. In fact, there is video showing Cheney lauding the strength of the vice presidency, asserting that “the vice president’s become an important part of the administration of the executive branch.” […]

In fact, in 2001 Cheney sought to avoid a lawsuit over his energy task force by claiming that a congressional probe “would unconstitutionally interfere with the functioning of the executive branch.”

Stick it in a time-capsule, folks, future generations may not believe how farcical the Bush gang really was.

Yep, although I’ve read a lot about Addington, this is the first time I’ve seen any video of him. All he lacks is a black cape and a pair of bloody fangs.
. . . jim strain in san diego.

  • Addington should be at the top of the list of war criminals and traitors to this country. Cheney and Bush may have approved, but Addington was the idea man and also the prime mover in getting everything done. If anyone in this administration deserves the death penalty it’s David Addington.

  • Addington, disgusted, said he didn’t “consider the Constitution a barnacle.”
    An obstacle, but never a barnacle.
    In an administration chock full of evil, stupid, arrogant people, Addington is a standout. Here’s hoping that he spends the rest of his life plagued by boils on his Cheney.

  • Addington, disgusted, said he didn’t “consider the Constitution a barnacle.”
    Funny, I don’t see how a 1961 memo is the Constitution, either.
    This creep deserves to be pelted with rotten fruit every time he appears in public.

  • I don’t seem to recall there being a “Senator-at-Large” on my 2000 and 2004 ballot. The only place I saw the verb “cheney” (synonymous with the phrase “Constitutional putrefaction” was under the heading “President and Vice President of the United States.” My ballot trumps Addington’s silliness; “cheney” ran and was elected as part of the Executive Branch.

    If he’s saying that he’s not part of the Branch he was hired to work for, then that should be considered “job abandonment.” Defund the bastage’s entire office and evict him from the Naval Observatory. Bloodsucking Borgish squatter!

    The “man-sized safes” he bought with the People’s money, however, will need to be left behind when he goes—along with all the taxpayer-purchased paper in those safes, and the taxpayer-purchased ink and toner that was put on that paper.

    And the taxpayer-purchased hard-drives, servers, back-up discs and tapes, videotapes, DVDs, audio recordings, etc., etc., etc., ….

  • That is what is so frustrating. Cheney can do anything he wants and here is his attorney telling us we should just STFU as he does it. When being part of the executive branch serves his purpose then Cheney is part of the executive branch. When it doesn’t serve his purpose…he isn’t…and there is nothing you can do about it.

    What’s worse than the rogue Bush administration are the complicit dem leaders who allow it to continue.

    Addington is despicable and it clearly shows…just like his boss.

  • A barnacle? No.

    A pimple on the ass of humanity? Yes.

    Now if someone could just pop that damn thing we could get on with fixing our country.

  • Because the Constitution does not recognize any government branch outside of the three mentioned, simple logic comes to the conclusion that neither the Vice President or his office exist and that any mention of that office is a figment of my imagination.

    Since the Constitution does mention the Vice President’s office, I am in a logical loop for now.

    Of course, it could be true that VP Cheney is just wrong 😀

    Shouldn’t someone in the Legislative Branch ask for a ruling on this? I am sure they would have standing and it would solve a lot of issues no matter what way the ruling went.

  • Addington is first on the list of Bushites who should have their passports seized on January 20th so they can’t travel abroad, get arrested for war crimes and embroil America in a conflict…

    … with the Netherlands.

  • anyone with so much contempt for the functions of government [oversight] shouldn’t be serving in the gov’t in any capacity .. imo ..

  • —Addington is first on the list of Bushites who should have their passports seized -on January 20th so they can’t travel abroad, get arrested for war crimes and embroil America in a conflict…

    … with the Netherlands.—

    Actually, I might be persuaded to contribute to a vacation package to Amsterdam for him, if we can get some assurances from the Dutch that they will act. In fact, we could put the whole ex-administration on a plane on the night of Jan. 20, tell them they won an all-exspense-paid trip to Hawaii, get them boozed up, and fly them to The Netherlands. Privately funded, of course. It would be easier to get contributions for that than for retiring Hillary’s debt.

  • As I posted on TPM,

    Addington has all the trappings of a “true believer” – cock sure of his beliefs, complete disdain for anyone who doesn’t share his beliefs, wrong on so many levels, and blind to them all.

  • T Hurlbutt (15): Actually, I might be persuaded to contribute to a vacation package to Amsterdam

    No, no, no. Not Amsterdam. Belgium – as in Hague. And not just for a weekend trip either.

  • This is all academic unless impeachment is on the table. That is the only tool Congress has to bring a President and adminstration this bent on continuously violating the law, continuously ignoring Congress’s oversight role and wiping their privates with the Constitution.

    Congress can whine all they want but without real action its meaningless posturing. Write your congressman and demand they support Kucinich’s bill of impeachment against Bush/Cheney.

    At this point anything short of impeachment guarantees the Executive will continue to accumulate power (whether Dem or Rep adminstrations) and the Constitution and rule of law will disappear into history.

  • IF he’s the Fourthbranch, he is subject to the subpoena power of Congress like any other citizen. Executive privelege cannot apply because he is not part of the White House by his own assertion in this case.

    If he’s executive, he is subject to oversight. My vote is for this, since Cheney already asserted this in open court in his lawsuit.

    As noted above, the 1961 memo is craptastic on its face and as irrelevant to the discussion as anything I might be saying after the third pitcher of beer. I will observe (and correct me if I’m wrong, please, we try to speak truth here) that the Founders didn’t classify the VP as a fourth branch, either in the US Constitution, the various amendments to it, nor even the Federalist Papers used to sell it to the States in the original ratification process.

    Too bad they had votes today, this contradiction is something Nadler, Conyers, and the rest of the D’s could sink their teeth into as they swatted Addington around like a hyperactive kitten on Jolts.

    And impeachment needs to commence, since there is going to be no other way to get this “Administration” to stop.

  • No, no, no. Not Amsterdam. Belgium – as in Hague.

    The Hague is the Netherlands, not Belgium.

  • Addington, like a vampire, doesn’t do well in the light of day. Proto-fascists need the sterilizing effect of sunlight. On the other hand, contempt for Congress is pretty easy to justify.

  • Danp, @17

    WTF? You want to send him on a buying trip for lace and chocolates? That’s all Belgium is good for. The Hague — and its international tribunal — is in the Lowlands (Netherlands)

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  • Okay, I googled “barnacles” to find something humorous to post, and found this at Wikipedia:

    “A barnacle is a type of arthropod belonging to infraclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacea, and is hence distantly related to crabs and lobsters. Barnacles are exclusively marine (with the exception of the Vice President of the United States)”

    I just couldn’t top that. Kudos to the author.

  • David Addington: best agument there is for bringing back the guillotine.

    This is the first traitor I want to see arrested at 12:02pm January 20, 2009.

  • OK. Let’s toss aside all civility and just speak truth… This guy needs a good old fashioned ass kicking.

  • Classic strategy — and should tell us everything we need to know as to exactly who came up with the “it’s not torture if we say it isn’t” gambit.

    Addington attempts to inject uncertainty as to the basic definitions of law, the Constitution, and everything else — all the way down to even basic judgments on moral behavior.

    I still don’t know why the committee Dems don’t respond with, “Okay, let’s say just for the sake of argument that the OVP isn’t part of the Executive branch — then that means you have no claim to ‘executive privilege’. Now talk, or be held in inherent contempt — we’ve some nice closets downstairs you can live in while you think about it.”

    Of course, that’d require the Dems to grow a spine… *sigh*

  • Perhaps I’m hoping against hope, but I’m hoping that the long arm of international law will catch up with Addington, Bush, et al. Remember Augusto Pinochet?

  • I watched the hearing in its entirety last night. Any description of Addington as reclusive or arrogant is wrong. The arrogance lies with the Congressmen and Women who rely on canned and nonsensical lines of hypothetical questioning in attempt to produce the answers that they have predetermined will fit their agenda. Asking the witnesses whether the president has the authority to authorize torture a detainees child has nothing to do with the procedure the attorneys went through to determine what interrogators could and could not do when trying to extract information from detainees! If anything, the hearing clearly exhibited the integrity of the witnesses in researching legal precedent to formulate the memo. Additionally, it was clear to anyone who watched that Addington has a better grasp of the constitution than any of the congressmen/women on the committee. Their ignorance was embarrassing.

  • Number 29 – you need to go back to your Republican cave with the rest of the traitors – our administration are all corrupt, arrogant, a$$holes – get rid of them NOW or we will be put under martial law (you know, that Octover surprise we keep hearing about) – if he is NOT the executive branch, great – go serve a contempt writ against him and take him into custody – no claims can then be made that he belongs to the executive and therefore is shielded!!! WTF is this country coming to????

  • David Addington: War Criminal.

    Karma will have it’s way with him. In due time he will be indicted and tried for war crimes, and then incarcerated fro a long time.

    What goes around comes around.

  • “For much of its existence, the office of Vice President was seen as little more than a minor position. John Adams, the first vice president, described it as “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.” Thomas R. Marshall, the 28th Vice President, lamented: ‘Once there were two brothers. One went away to sea; the other was elected vice president. And nothing was heard of either of them again.’ ”

    What a bloody tragedy that we haven’t kept it that way!

  • Impeachment isn’t about Bush/Cheney now. It’s about future administrations and making it clear what we will tolerate from our leaders and what we will not tolerate. We have got to start the process and make sure that Bush, when he pardons people at the end of his regime, doesn’t make it all go away.

  • I hope someone feels free enough to treat Mr. Addington to the same kind of thing he has vetted for the rest of humanity. Good to see the scum behind the worst abuses finally rising to the surface where it can be dealt with.

  • # 30 you have info people need to know more about here in these posts , Eveyone needs to read or watch the C-SPAN Interview with Jerome Corsi PHD Harvard in 2007 Read Watch and learn ! about this possible event happining .

    Far as king David Adink ton and Little Johnny Oh No Yoo , Stupid is What Stupid doe’s !

    Tim Russert had it Right , What a Counrty and go get ’em , Yah , and We Will

  • Belgium has great beer; the Dutch and GErmans travel there to drink. Chocolate is the best too. Lace? Not my thing.

    And–IMPEACH.

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