NewsHour: "PRESIDENT Cheney.......oooops"

[omega minimo]

PRESIDENTIAL POWERS
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/jan-june06/powers_2-20.html
February 20, 2006

JIM LEHRER: But, Richard, Vice President Cheney and others in the Bush administration have said recently that the power of the president has actually been reduced particularly since Watergate and Vietnam. Does that make sense to you?

RICHARD NORTON SMITH: Well, it makes sense to the vice president. And I guess that's really all that matters. Where do you think that came from? Go back 30 years.
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Who was Gerald Ford's chief of staff? A 34-year-old wunderkind named Richard B. Cheney. And 30 years later I suspect that the vice president's attitude about the power of the presidency is in many ways a direct outgrowth of his youthful experiences in that combat during the Nixon-Ford era.

JIM LEHRER: But, Ellen, is it a natural evolution that when there has been a scandal, there has been a difficult situation, that the immediate impact of that is for, naturally, there would be a downgrading of presidential power if the presidency was involved in a scandal or some bad decisions? Would you buy that?

ELLEN FITZPATRICK: Yes, I do. But I think the vice president's comment was absolutely fascinating to me because see whenever a president or a vice president specifically references historical events, one, if you're a historian you want to prick up your ears. The mention of Vietnam and Watergate I thought was fascinating because he brought it up in the context of a diminution of the presidential authority in the context of worrying about matters of national security.

But the resonances for people who lived through this period and for historians are that the Vietnam War, the entire conflict in its most escalated phases was fought on the basis of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which was not a declaration of war, of course, and that really allowed the president to take any necessary means to protect the security of the armed forces and to prevent further aggression.

And, of course, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution later was called into question. And it passed unanimously in the House, two votes against in the Senate. It was based on faulty intelligence in part.

The Watergate scandal, of course, involved domestic surveillance in part. And these are the two things that the vice president has said are kind of irrelevant; we should set them aside. They've diminished the power of the presidency.

It's sort of hard to make that case, I think, if you look at the longer view.



JIM LEHRER: Before we go then, the final to you first Richard and then Ellen, it's been said, the cliché is that Dick Cheney is the most powerful vice president in history. Is that true?

RICHARD NORTON SMITH: I think it is. Look at his predecessor. Al Gore reinvented government. Dick Cheney wants to reinvent the Middle East.

JIM LEHRER: Ellen?

ELLEN FITZPATRICK: I think he is an enormously powerful force and that certainly he is the most powerful president in modern American history.

JIM LEHRER: Vice president.

ELLEN FITZPATRICK: Vice president -- excuse me -- a slip of the tongue that is itself revealing.

[EST]

1. Lehrer, himself, referred to "president Cheney,"

last week-thursday, I think it was.

[omega minimo]

2. "...a slip of the tongue that is itself revealing."

Twice!

[kaygore]

3. de facto president

Bush is dumb as a post, not that Dick Cheney is really all that much brighter...just a whole lot meaner.

[laheina]

4. Both of the guests in that segment got some good digs

in at both Cheney and Bush.

That's what happens when you have *smart* people on a news show instead of talking heads. :)

[Wilms]

5. Missed this evenings broadcast.

Thanks for posting.

[MissMarple]

6. Indeed, we have come to a most sorry pass.

I think this is a true crisis in American history. No one is really at the helm. Not only are there no adults in charge, the current adolescents are "out of pocket".

[omega minimo]

7. the ole switcharoo

PNAC for the Constitution