NYT editorial, "Cheney Rules": Cheney "has privatized the job of vice president of the U.S."

[DeepModem Mom]

Dick Cheney Rules
Published: June 3, 2007

....The Associated Press reported that Mr. Cheney’s office ordered the Secret Service last September to destroy all records of visitors to the official vice presidential mansion — right after The Washington Post sued for access to the logs. That move was made in secret, naturally. It came out only because of another lawsuit, filed by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, seeking the names of conservative religious figures who visited the vice president’s residence.

This disdain for accountability is distressing, but not surprising. Mr. Cheney has had it on display from his first days in office, when he refused to name the energy-industry executives who met with him behind closed doors to draft an energy policy.

In a similar way, Mr. Cheney seems unconcerned about little things like checks and balances and traditional American notions of judicial process. At one point, he gave himself the power to selectively declassify documents and selectively leak them to reporters. In a recent commencement address, he declaimed against prisoners who had the gall to “demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States.”

Mr. Cheney is the driving force behind the Bush administration’s theory of the “unitary executive,” which holds that no one, including Congress and the courts, has the power to supervise or regulate the actions of the president. Just as he pays little attention to old-fangled notions of the separation of powers, Mr. Cheney does not overly bother himself about the bright line that should exist between his last job as chief of the energy giant Halliburton and his current one on the public payroll....

Reviewing this record — secrecy, impatience with government regulations, backroom dealings, handsome paydays — it dawned on us that Mr. Cheney is in step with the times. He has privatized the job of vice president of the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/opinion/03sun2.html?em&ex=1181102400&en=a31d211972eecd56&ei=5087%0A

[TahitiNut]

1. VPOTUS: Outsourced to Halliburton

:puke:

[grasswire]

2. isn't that obstruction of justice?

To destroy evidence?

[Frustratedlady]

3. Wasn't that about the same time the shredding truck was seen

at his compound?

I suppose they were making bedding for the hamster cages? :sarcasm:

[CJCRANE]

4. Cheney to America: "Go f*** yourself". n/t

[rudy23]

5. Everything, including our military, is now privatized

Do you think these private companies will let us vote on stuff, the way our government did up until 2000?

[dalaigh lllama]

6. Cheney -- the "Vice" President

vice (vīs)
n.

1. An evil, degrading, or immoral practice or habit.
2. A serious moral failing.
3. Wicked or evil conduct or habits; corruption.