From CounterPunch
By Christopher Brauchli

Although I am not normally one to spring to the defense of Dick Cheney I have to say that people are being really petty about the latest kerfuffle over his conduct. Mr. Cheney is not, after all, just any vice president. He was president of a big corporation before he picked himself to be Mr. Bush’s vice-president. He would not have made the switch from president of a big important company to a job described by John Nance Garner, one of its former occupants, as not worth more than a warm bucket of spit, unless he knew that the position he was accepting was more important than the job he was giving up. The reason it is more important is not just that he, being brighter than the president, sees himself as the real power behind the throne. It is because of the unique nature of the office of the vice-presidency as seen through Mr. Cheney’s constitutional eyes.

Mr. Cheney and other constitutional scholars know that what makes the Constitution of the United State a special document is that it is a living document that changes with the times, even if some of the changes can only be effected by torturing its meaning. (Torture, as Mr. Cheney knows, can work miracles).

According to Mr. Cheney’s interpretation of the Constitution, the vice-president is a member of the executive branch for purposes of being entitled to receive classified information that members of the legislative branch may not receive, but a member of the legislative branch when it comes to being accountable for what he does with that information. It is based on this creative interpretation of the Constitution that recent events unfolded.

In mid-June it was disclosed that beginning in 2003, Mr. Cheney’s office had refused to comply with Executive Order 12958. In a very nice letter to Mr. Cheney, Henry Waxman, the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform explained to Mr. Cheney what that executive order was all about and to whom it applied. He explained to Mr. Cheney that: “Executive Order 12958 . . . directs the National Archives to oversee a uniform system for protecting classified information. A key component of the executive order directs the Information Security Oversight Office . . . to inspect . . . White House offices to ensure compliance with the security procedures required by the President.” The executive order applies to any “entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information.”

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