It seems like Bush doesn’t even know what the hell he is signing:
The White House said Friday that, like Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, President Bush’s office is not allowing an independent federal watchdog to oversee its handling of classified national security information.
An executive order that Bush issued in March 2003 — amending an existing order — requires all government agencies that are part of the executive branch to submit to oversight. Although it doesn’t specifically say so, Bush’s order was not meant to apply to the vice president’s office or the president’s office, a White House spokesman said.
The issue flared Thursday when Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) criticized Cheney for refusing to file annual reports with the federal National Archives and Records Administration, for refusing to spell out how his office handles classified documents, and for refusing to submit to an inspection by the archives’ Information Security Oversight Office.
The archives administration has been pressing the vice president’s office to cooperate with oversight for the last several years, contending that by not doing so, Cheney and his staff have created a potential national security risk.
Bush amended the oversight directive in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to help ensure that national secrets would not be mishandled, made public or improperly declassified.
The order aimed to create a uniform system for classifying, declassifying and otherwise safeguarding national security information. It gave the archives’ oversight unit responsibility for evaluating the effectiveness of each agency’s classification programs. It applied to the executive branch of government, mostly agencies led by Bush administration appointees — not to legislative offices such as Congress or to judicial offices such as the courts.
“Our democratic principles require that the American people be informed of the activities of their government,” the executive order said.
This really is this incompetent administration in a nutshell. Bush doesn’t know what he signed and thinks he can just say he is exempt and that covers all the bases (he is the decider), Cheney is arguing that he is part of the legislative branch and is loking like a complete moron, and this is a battle neither of them needed to fight and makes both look exceedingly petty, arrogant, and stupid.
Bush issued the executive order. If he wants Darth Cheney and his mini0ns exempt, he can just reissue a new order clarifying. Instead, dumb and dumber are going to wow us all over the next few weeks with a neverending parade of silly and indefensible excuses.
Bruce Moomaw
“This is a battle … [that] makes both look exceedingly petty, arrogant, and stupid.”
In other words, it’s a blow for Honesty In Government.
Once again, this Administration is definitely following the philosophy of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “In the last analysis, the law is whatever the people will let you get away with.”
McMartin
Perhaps the President isn’t part of the executive branch either.
Zifnab
Are you kidding? Its way more fun this way, because if Congress ever finally backs Bush into a corner on this, he can save “I pardon myself and rewrite all my executive orders retroactively” as the ultimate middle-finger trump card to Congress.
And the dutiful Republicans will chirp along in support, because they’re a bunch of douchebags too.
jake
But it worked so well for A.G. da A.G.!
Really, it isn’t just that they lie, it is that they can’t be bothered to come up with lies that would decieve a snowflake baby. Before this is all over I fully expect Bush to claim God told him to take this or that idiotic course of action…
Oh wait.
Well, has he mentioned the devil yet?
wvng
This is a wonderful response from the Dems, from Atrios via Steve Benen at Talking Points Memo (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/014786.php):
Washington, D.C. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel issued the following statement regarding his amendment to cut funding for the Office of the Vice President from the bill that funds the executive branch. The legislation — the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill — will be considered on the floor of the House of Representatives next week.
“The Vice President has a choice to make. If he believes his legal case, his office has no business being funded as part of the executive branch. However, if he demands executive branch funding he cannot ignore executive branch rules. At the very least, the Vice President should be consistent. This amendment will ensure that the Vice President’s funding is consistent with his legal arguments. I have worked closely with my colleagues on this amendment and will continue to pursue this measure in the coming days.”
Chad N. Freude
You people just don’t understand how executive orders work. Dana Perino explained it all very clearly at a press conference. (The transcript reads like a Jon Stewart interview.)
Jay C
Yep. That’s it: why not? It’s worked for him and his whole criminal regime so far, why change now? Although my guess is that they’ll follow up a curt dismissal of the whole affair with some huffy snark about “national security” and/or “wartime necessities” and how obsessive congressional Democrats are fixating on procedural trivia when they should be cutting taxes and cheerleading for the Great War on Badness.
Any odds on what, exactly, Rep. Waxman – or anyone else – is likely to do about this?
caustics
I believe Cheney’s (or his staff, at least) actual argument is that he’s some sort of post 9/11 Chimera with equivalent Mojo in both the Executive and Legislative branches, and hence neither. You zig, he zags.
And 26% still think moves like this are part of the magic totem of “Oh Yeah? Fuck You!”, which will somehow prompt The Ghost of Dead Daddy Reagan to deliver ponies under every winger bed for 2008.
grumpy realist
What I can’t understand is not only did the populace of the US elect this moron to the supreme position of President of the United States, we elected him TWICE!
No wonder the rest of the world is laughing its pants off at us.
Bush et Cheney exeuendo.
Pixie
/Doesn’t remember electing either of them
Zifnab
Bwhahahaha!
~link
Redhand
Pardon me while I vomit. As Paulie Walnuts would say, “The framus intersects at the apex of the pater noster.” The “answer” was complete nonsense. And what’s with this “er” sh*t? Bush calls himself the “decider” rather than the decision maker. Now Bush’s press lackeys call Cheney the “representer” rather than representative?! Is aping Bush’s inability to speak English grammatically the new WH fashion? Or are we all supposed to believe they’re as stupid as ghe is? (Not a stretch on reflection.)
DougJ
That doesn’t bother me, 26% of the population also believes it’s been anally probed by space aliens. And, believe me, it’s the same 26%.
What bothers me is that douchebags like David Broder believe that Michael Bloomberg will save us from all of this.
Punchy
$100 dollars says they use this exact same reasoning to declare the coming impeachment null-and-void.
I read that Perino transcript. I’m quite sure I’ve never read anything so truly laughable as that. Just sheer comdey.
Rome Again
It is becoming painfully obvious that snowflake babies have a much higher IQ potential than that of Bush supporters.
People in the Sun
I guess he can do whatever he wants if he uses an erasable ink. Or maybe it was a pencil?
Rome Again
Except those activities of Bush, Cheney and anyone they placed in their employ. The American people must NEVER know anything about those. Of course, if Bush, Cheney, et al are NOT part of teh executive branch, then they aren’t part of the government and that makes it perfectly okay. Just call them “overlords”.
TAX ANALYST
It actually kind of makes sense…these guys consider themselves exempt from, let’s see…”Reality” – remember, they make their own, so fuck what really happens to our country and the people in it…”Congressional (or any other brand of) Oversight” – no need to explain or be accountable when you are plainly superior and above all of that nonsense, right?…”Science” – It’s all in the Bible, so why do ya’ need this fancy mumbo-jumbo – it jest cornfuses yah, anyway…”Knowledge” – Same as that Sci-yance mumbo-jumbo…moor cornfuseon…”Common Sense” – do you really need examples here?…They probably consider themselves exempt from “Gravity”, too…would that it t’were…’cause their sorry asses might just float away into space and out of our lives…
Rome Again
Great sales pitch, do you deliver too?
Bruce Moomaw
Actually, contrary to John, one can clearly see why Bush is claiming that his executive order — retroactively — was never intended to apply to Cheney or himself, even though it clearly said nothing of the sort at the time. If he simply declared AT THIS POINT that it doesn’t apply to Cheney (or himself), that by itself wouldn’t change the fact that in the past its wording clearly said that it DID apply to them — and so he’d still have to explain why they had been ignoring it up till today. Ergo, Eurasia has ALWAYS been at war with Eastasia. Q.E.D.
Meanwhile, Josh Marshall notes that Cheney was doing exactly this same bizarre song and dance about the Veep being a fourth branch of government months ago — but at that time, the Regular Press Ha-Ha wasn’t paying any attention to the story, although plenty of liberal bloggers were raising hell about it. Which just proves again that the advent of political bloggers — despite the huge amount of biased B.S. they generate, and the need to filter it all carefully to try and find the truth — is a good thing. The regular press needs to be poked with a sharp stick frequently in order to be stimulated to do its job, and the Internet has finally brought that stick into existence for the first time in history.
Rome Again
Where’s Woodstein and Bernwood when you need them? ;)
Rome Again
Where’s Woodstein and Bernward when you need them? ;)
Rome Again
Sorry for the double post, didn’t think it took the first time, and being late, I noticed a missed stake!
jake
She sounds like an seventh grader giving a report. One she wrote between classes. How can reporters listen to this crap without laughing?
ThymeZone
If you’ve received a digital prostate exam, it isn’t that big a stretch to the alien part. Take a good look at your doctor, and ask, “Isn’t it unearthly to take that much glee in doing something like that?”
Huh? Think about it.
Davebo
But if you can make a buck off of it….
TAX ANALYST
“Rome Again Says:
They probably consider themselves exempt from “Gravity”, too…would that it t’were…’cause their sorry asses might just float away into space and out of our lives…
Great sales pitch, do you deliver too?”
Would that I could…
taodon
Since he is no longer a part of the executive branch, does that mean he can no longer claim executive privilege?
Rome Again
I stupidly followed that link, and saw that Michelle Malkin is on the “Bomb Iran” bandwagon.
Oh, that was NOT the first thing I wanted to see this morning.
Rome Again
No, it means he can claim superexecutive privilege now. He’s not limited by executive guidelines anymore. Now he can do anything he wants without those stupid rules that all of those other silly men in his position were beholden to.
Move out of the White House on January 20, 2009? Bah, that’s for amateurs. George wants to make it his permanent residence.
Mc Dime
A Man for All Seasons is currently on TCM. My first thought was Bush and Cheney should be strapped in chairs and forced to watch the movie over and over, but then I ralized that in their cynicism they would find Thomas More a fool and the King and his minions shrwed political operators to be admired. How did we end up with people like this running the country?
Sri Ramkrishna
What bugs me is that this whole “define our own reality” bullshit works. I mean 6 years now they’ve been doing it, and it seems that they can get away with it even if 70% of the country is against it.
I simply can’t understand why there has to be so much political calculations on behalf of the democrats. Just fucking impeach the two of them and let history sort it out. Arrange for another Paris Hilton/Lindsey Lohan lesbian scandal right around the same time and you’ll have Fox and Fox viewers sufficiently distracted enough to let the rest of the country go on with solving real problems.
The second amendment is making more sense every day.
sri
tBone
Where were all of you leftards when the Clintons destroyed the White House travel office records to conceal their many, many murders?
Dreggas
Getting lewinskied :)