Cheney and the Constitution

[L. Coyote]

Source: The Nation

If it weren't so frightening, the irony would be delicious: A Vice President who has done more than any other to push the envelope on executive privilege at the expense of the courts and Congress takes the position that his office has both legislative and executive functions so as to avoid accounting for the use of classified materials.

Any veneer of intellectual legitimacy that executive power defenders have caked on their vision of a monarchical executive evaporates in the glare of this naked opportunism. And the scope and nature of today's constitutional crisis comes into clearer focus.

The term "constitutional crisis" is much abused, invoked generally whenever Congress shows some life. Confrontations on war funding and Congressional subpoenas, to cite recent examples, are in fact as old as the Republic. They are but healthy sparks from a constitutional confrontation of "ambition against ambition," precisely as the Framers intended.

But the true crisis is hidden in plain sight--the existence of an office in the Constitution--the Vice President's--with no real remit and no real limits, open to exploitation and abuse.

Read more: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070709/huq

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Yeah, right. Blame the Constitution!

[MADem]

1. This was a joke two years ago--it ain't so funny now (Constitution toilet paper)

(AP)-White House aides are finalizing an agreement to market toilet paper which features excerpts from the US Constitution on each sheet, as ordered by US President George Bush in recent weeks.

The unusual marketing effort came about in November, when Republican Congressional leaders met in the Oval Office with Bush to discuss renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.

Many provisions of the act which had been passed in the traumatic period following the 9/11 attacks have caused sufficient anger to force liberal groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union to join with prominent conservatives to oppose renewal.
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s5i9885

[fooj]

2. In plain sight!

All of it. :grr: