Tuesday, December 23, 2008
One More Thing Re: Fox News Interview of Cheney
Cheney got in a number of licks against critics without any, or much of a response from Wallace. One of the glaring criticisms that went unchallenged was this one regarding Cheney's response to some recent criticisms (really extensions from the campaign) by Joe Biden against Cheney and his view of executive power.
Wallace asked Cheney what he thought of this Biden criticism made on the campaign trail in October as well as Wallace's characterization:
"Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous Vice President we've had probably in American history." Transition officials say that Biden plans to shrink his office; that he is not going to meet with Senate Democrats the way you did every week with Senate Republicans; that he is not going to have his own "shadow government" in the White House. Biden has said that he believes you have dangerously expansive views of executive power. "Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous Vice President we've had probably in American history." Transition officials say that Biden plans to shrink his office; that he is not going to meet with Senate Democrats the way you did every week with Senate Republicans; that he is not going to have his own "shadow government" in the White House. Biden has said that he believes you have dangerously expansive views of executive power.
Cheney scoffed by questioning Biden's intelligence regarding the Constitution (suggesting that if he did not understand the most basic parts of the Constitution, how can we ever trust him as the number 2 guy?):
Well, I just fundamentally disagree with him. He also said that all the powers and responsibilities of the executive branch are laid out in Article I of the Constitution. Well, they're not. Article I of the Constitution is the one on the legislative branch. Joe's been chairman of the Judiciary Committee, a member of the Judiciary Committee in the Senate for 36 years, teaches constitutional law back in Delaware, and can't keep straight which article of the Constitution provides for the legislature, which provides for the executive.
That struck me as surprising, and I wondered why Wallace didn't pursue it by looking at what Biden actually said and then asking Cheney whether he really watched the debates himself or did he allow staff to fill in the blanks? Here is Biden's response during the debate to a question he got from moderator Gwen Ifill regarding Cheney's interpretation of the vice presidency:
Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history. The idea he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit.
The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he's part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous.
In the first paragraph, it really isn't clear precisely what Biden is saying, but by the final paragraph, it comes into focus what the meaning was behind the first paragraph. Biden says: "The ideal he's part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive and look where it has gotten us..."
You may recall a minor kerfuffle a year or so ago where Cheney was trying to battle a requirement by the "Information Security Oversight Office," or ISOO, to turn over information regarding its classification process. During that dust up, Cheney made the remarkable claim that he was exempted from the policy because it demanded that executive branch entities turn over the information, and he was not an executive branch entity. Instead, the vice president was an Article I officer. Cheney made that argument. Publicly, I might add.
So would it not behoove Wallace to remind Cheney that it was he, and not Biden, who needed the constitutional lesson as it was Biden, maybe not clearly, who was chiding Cheney's interpretation of the Constitution?
So much for liberal bias.
