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FRONTLINE'S SEASON PREMIERE INVESTIGATES CHENEY'S EFFORTS TO EXPAND THE POWER OF THE PRESIDENCY

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Up2Late Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-19-07 02:37 PM
Original message
FRONTLINE'S SEASON PREMIERE INVESTIGATES CHENEY'S EFFORTS TO EXPAND THE POWER OF THE PRESIDENCY
Source: FRONTLINE PRESS RELEASE


PRESS RELEASE

FRONTLINE'S SEASON PREMIERE INVESTIGATES CHENEY'S EFFORTS TO EXPAND THE POWER OF THE PRESIDENCY


FRONTLINE presents
CHENEY'S LAW
Tuesday, October 16, 2007, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS




For three decades Vice President Dick Cheney conducted a secretive, behind-closed-doors campaign to give the president virtually unlimited wartime power. Finally, in the aftermath of 9/11, the Justice Department and the White House made a number of controversial legal decisions. Orchestrated by Cheney and his lawyer David Addington, the department interpreted executive power in an expansive and extraordinary way, granting President George W. Bush the power to detain, interrogate, torture, wiretap and spy -- without congressional approval or judicial review.

Now, as the White House appears ready to ignore subpoenas in the wiretapping and U.S. attorneys' cases, FRONTLINE's season premiere, Cheney's Law, airing Oct. 16, 2007, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings), examines the battle over the power of the presidency and Cheney's way of looking at the Constitution.

"The vice president believes that Congress has very few powers to actually constrain the president and the executive branch," former Justice Department attorney Marty Lederman tells FRONTLINE. "He believes the president should have the final word, indeed the only word on all matters within the executive branch."

After Sept. 11, Cheney and Addington were determined to implement their vision -- in secret. The vice president and his counsel found an ally in John Yoo, a lawyer at the Justice Department's extraordinarily powerful Office of Legal Counsel. In concert with Addington, Yoo wrote memoranda authorizing the president to act with unparalleled authority.

"Through interviews with key administration figures, Cheney's Law documents the bruising bureaucratic battles between a group of conservative Justice Department lawyers and the Office of the Vice President over the legal foundation for the most closely guarded programs in the war on terror," says FRONTLINE producer/director/writer Michael Kirk. This is Kirk's tenth documentary about the Bush administration's policies since 9/11 (Rumsfeld's War, The Torture Question, The Dark Side, The Lost Year in Iraq, Endgame).

In his most extensive television interview since leaving the Justice Department, former Assistant Attorney General Jack L. Goldsmith describes his initial days at the Department of Justice in the fall of 2003 as he learned about the government's most secret and controversial covert operations. Goldsmith was shocked by the administration's secret assertion of unlimited power.

"There were extravagant and unnecessary claims of presidential power that were wildly overbroad to the tasks at hand," Goldsmith says. "I had a whole flurry of emotions. My first one was disbelief that programs of this importance could be supported by legal opinions that were this flawed. My second was the realization that I would have a very, very hard time standing by these opinions if pressed. My third was the sinking feeling -- what was I going to do if I was pressed about reaffirming these opinions?"

As Goldsmith began to question his colleagues' claims that the administration could ignore domestic laws and international treaties, he began to clash with Cheney's office. According to Goldsmith, Addington warned him, "If you rule that way, the blood of the 100,000 people who die in the next attack will be on your hands."

Goldsmith's battles with Cheney culminated in a now-famous hospital-room confrontation at Attorney General John Ashcroft's bedside. Goldsmith watched as White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andy Card pleaded with Ashcroft to overrule the department's finding that a domestic surveillance program was illegal. Ashcroft rebuffed the White House, and as many as 30 department lawyers threatened to resign. The president relented.

But Goldsmith's victory was temporary, and Cheney's Law continues the story after the famous hospital-room standoff. At the Justice Department, White House Counsel Gonzales was named attorney general and tasked with reasserting White House control. On Capitol Hill, Cheney lobbied Congress for broad authorizations for the eavesdropping program and for approval of the administration's system for trying suspected terrorists by military tribunals.

As the White House and Congress continue to face off over executive privilege, the Terrorist Surveillance Program, and the firing of U.S. attorneys, FRONTLINE tells the story of the man behind what some view as the most ambitious project to reshape the power of the president in American history.

Following the broadcast, Cheney's Law will be available to view on FRONTLINE's Web site, .

Cheney's Law is a FRONTLINE co-production with Kirk Documentary Group, Ltd. The writer, producer and director is Michael Kirk. The co-producer and reporter is Jim Gilmore. FRONTLINE is produced by WGBH Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Park Foundation. FRONTLINE is closed-captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers and described for people who are blind or visually impaired by the Media Access Group at WGBH. FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. The FRONTLINE executive producer for special projects is Michael Sullivan. The executive producer for FRONTLINE is David Fanning.

pbs.org/pressroom
Promotional photography can be downloaded from the PBS pressroom.

Press contacts
Diane Buxton
(617) 300-5375
diane_buxton@wgbh.org

Alissa Rooney
(617) 300-5314
alissa_rooney@wgbh.org

Phil Zimmerman
(617) 300-5366
phil_zimmerman@wgbh.org


Read more: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/cheney/



If you thought you had nothing left to live for, here's something I can hardly wait to see!
I don't know if any of the so-called MSM have picked up this Press Release, so I thought I'd post it here; we need to get the word out about this show!
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musette_sf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-19-07 02:40 PM
Response to Original message
1. K&R
scummy old Nixonite deserves it. let's not forget that so many of these scum came out of Nixon's Imperial Presidency.
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saigon68 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-19-07 07:10 PM
Response to Reply #1
11. "Gangster" Cheney is a Carbuncle on the rear end of
This simian


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eppur_se_muova Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-19-07 02:41 PM
Response to Original message
2. Hot dayyam! No wonder they tried to suffocate PBS! nt
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w8liftinglady Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-19-07 02:42 PM
Response to Original message
3. kicking,rec'ing and tivoing...
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demnan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-19-07 02:46 PM
Response to Original message
4. Thanks for posting
I look forward to this one.

IMPEACH CHENEY FIRST!!!!!
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Roland99 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-19-07 02:53 PM
Response to Original message
5. *SO* looking forward to that. The Dark Side really laid out how Cheney's taken over the gov't
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high density Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-19-07 02:56 PM
Response to Original message
6. "Nothing left to live for" but watching a show about Cheney on PBS?
I know times are tough but what's going on here? .... I hate to dash your hopes but this show isn't going to change anything. It's more like one of those "Seconds from Disaster" episodes on the National Geographic Channel, taking a look back at a catastrophe that has already gone down.
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Roland99 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-19-07 02:58 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. Helps unveil the ambitions to attack Iran.
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sdfernando Donating Member (421 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-19-07 03:39 PM
Response to Original message
8. After all is said and done...and
the current president is out of office, what cheney has done to expand the power of the presidency may actually result in a weaker office.
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Up2Late Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-19-07 06:22 PM
Response to Original message
9. kick n/t
:kick:
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stlsaxman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-19-07 07:00 PM
Response to Original message
10. Five more rec's put this on the Greatest Page...
let's go people! 'sgo 'SGO 'SGO!!!!
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Megahurtz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-19-07 07:33 PM
Response to Original message
12. Kick.
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Up2Late Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Sep-19-07 10:33 PM
Response to Original message
13. kick n/t
:kick:
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