CHENEY, ENRON, and the Constitution (Time)

[savemefromdumbya]

OK, what else haven't you done Cheney?

Cheney, Enron, and the Constitution

The Vice President is right that executive privilege is being eroded. But Enron is not the case to make his stand against it. Yale Professor Akhil Reed Amar explains why
By AKHIL REED AMAR

Invoking executive privilege, Vice President Dick Cheney refuses to disclose details of meetings he held last year with Enron officials. If Congress ultimately decides to press the issue, Cheney would be wise to yield.

The phrases "executive privilege" and "separation of powers" do not appear in the Constitution. Nevertheless, the Constitution clearly creates three distinct departments, and some sort of executive privilege may properly be deduced from this general tripartite structure.

But what sort? In the 1974 Nixon Tapes Case, the Supreme Court recognized that presidential conversations with executive staff are presumptively privileged, but then proclaimed that, unless national security were involved, this executive privilege must yield whenever courts had need for specific, material, and relevant evidence. This is a rather puny privilege. Anyone can resist a subpoena that is overbroad or irrelevant. When husbands speak with wives, clients with attorneys, patients with doctors, or penitents with priests, these conversations are all entitled to far more protection than the Nixon Court gave to Presidents speaking with staffers.

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Lithos
DU Moderator

[bleever]

1. Good article on one element of the constitutional crisis headed our way.

Rec'd.

[savemefromdumbya]

3. Cheers

[rodeodance]

2. Even when his poles are down so much, congress is AFRAID of him.

[savemefromdumbya]

5. does he have the power we think he has?

[Peace Patriot]

4. "...unelected special prosecutors..." Ahem. Here we get to the heart of

the matter. This writer, and presumably Time, may be advising Cheney, here, to take the less dangerous road of Bush "pod people" looking into his criminal conflict of interest on energy policy, and other offenses, rather than letting someone do it--a special prosecutor--who will be more likely to hold him accountable than his buds in this disreputable Congress.

It sounds all erudite and legalistic. But pay attention to the juxtaposition here: If Congress "were to subpoena Cheney, he should not lightly disregard the people's representatives....". As opposed to what? To lightly disregarding the subpoena of a special prosecutor? Is a special prosecutor not representing "the people" in grand juries and in court? Perhaps in a different way, but one with the equal force of law.

And this pious crap--"the people's representatives"--is enough to make one gag. Choose: Who is representing the people right now, Patrick Fitzgerald, in his tenacious pursuit of White House wrongdoing, law-breaking and what I would call treason? Or Bill Frist, Dennis Hastert, Orin Hatch, Pat Roberts, et al, and their self-serving pursuit of more tax cuts for rich, more carnage in the Middle East, more torture, more spying, more benefits for drug companies, more destruction of wild areas, more pure lard for Halliburton, and all these other wonderful that "the people" really want and need?

The "people's representatives," my ass. This appears to me to be a subtle argument for Bush's Congress to defuse this matter--and the matter of other Cheney crimes--before, a) a real prosecutor nails him, or b) the House changes hands in the fall and real Congressional investigations can begin.

And this nonsense about executive privilege--applied to this gang of master thieves and mass murderers--is an absurdity. Bush and Cheney bear no resemblance to any previous holders of those offices. They are criminals. They are a junta, engaged in outrageous violations of the Constitution that chillingly parallel Hitler's rise to power. To put Bush in the same category as Thomas Jefferson is a ludicrous distortion of who and what Bush is: the mean-minded, idiot puppet of torturers, murderers, and master thieves. He is not our president and never has been. He is merely the place-holder for the Bush/Corporate cabal--the ugly, insulting face of illegitimate power.

He and his junta have destroyed our country. They have earned NOTHING. They HAVE no privilege, executive or otherwise. They are entitled to just as much consideration as a lowly prostitute or drug-user gets these days before the court of our so-called justice system. And, in all justice, they should be taken from the White House in handcuffs and ALL of their papers, emails, letters, phone logs, hard drives, and everything they have touched in the PEOPLE'S White House and in the PEOPLE'S government confiscated and opened to public view.

This charade--this delusion of democracy, this nightmare government--needs to be over. And super-polite, almost decorous legal articles like this are perpetuating a massive scam on the American public that this government holds some sort of legitimate place in the tradition of our democracy, and is a party to the rule of law.

[savemefromdumbya]

6. Yes, yes and yes!

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

7. Dear savemefromdumbya,

Please be aware that DU copyright rules require that excerpts of copyrighted material be limited to four paragraphs.


best,
wakemeupwhenitsover
DU Moderator

[savemefromdumbya]

8. oops!

sorry - the copy and paste worked overtime