Reporters finally pushed the White House today on the Vice President’s belief that his office is some kind of fourth branch of government — not executive, not legislative, not accountable to anyone. WH spokesperson Dana Perino’s responses were almost comical.
Q: What do you make of what congressman Waxman referred to as “absurd,” which was the Vice President’s contention that his office is not part of the executive branch?
PERINO: What I think, as I said, I think that is an interesting constitutional question that people can debate. What I think is absurd is —
Q: Would you agree with his contention?
PERINO: What I think is absurd —
Q: Hang on a second. Do you agree with his contention?
PERINO: What I think is absurd is Chairman Waxman asserting some sort of authority over the president in regarding [sic] an executive order, of which he is the sole enforcer.
Q: Would you agree with the contention that the office of the Vice President is not part of the executive branch?
PERINO: What I know — and I am not a lawyer and this is an interesting legal question that legal scholars can debate and I’m sure you’ll find plenty of them inside the Beltway — is that the Vice President has a unique role in our United States government. He is not only the Vice President of the United States, but in that role he is also the President of the Senate. I will go ahead, I will let that debate be held, but what I’m answering questions on, in regards to this morning, is Chairman Waxman’s accusations about this small provision and going back and reading the E.O. and realizing that the President did not intend to have the Vice President treated any differently than himself, and remembering that the executive order is enforced solely by the president of the United States. I think this is a little bit of a non-issue.
So, the problem here is that Waxman believes the Bush administration should enforce its own rules? That’s “absurd”?
Update: Just to flesh this out a little, this speaks to just how radical a White House we’re dealing with here. Forget right and wrong, the Bush gang wants to debate the plain text of Article II.
It gets back to a point I raised a couple of weeks ago. When I worked at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, it was frustrating to debate rivals in the religious right, not because they held competing opinions, but because they accepted a different reality. I would note that the Constitution separates church from state. They’d say, “No, it doesn’t.” I’d say the Founding Fathers intentionally created a secular Constitution. They’d say, “No, they didn’t.”
The same thing here. The Constitution establishes the Vice Presidency in Article II, which, you guessed it, created the executive branch. But the White House, known for creating its own reality, refuses to acknowledge that which has never been controversial.
I particularly enjoyed Perino’s suggestion that the executive order for the executive branch included a “small provision.” In other words, the Bush gang might follow the “big” provisions, but those “small” ones are optional. Please.
Perino’s right, enforcing executive orders does fall under the president’s purview. But therein lies the point — Waxman is pointing out that this White House is ignoring its own rules, and it’s asking the appropriate federal agency to investigate. Cheney is responding by a) holding himself out as a fourth branch of government; and b) trying to eliminate that agency altogether.
Stick it in a time capsule, folks. Future generations won’t believe it.
Second Update: Nico adds that in the same briefing, Perino stated definitively that Cheney was “complying with all the rules and regulations regarding the handling of classified material.” But when questioned how she knew that Cheney was in compliance, Perino said it was a “good question” and admitted she isn’t “positive” that he is in compliance.