NYT Editorial "Mr. Cheney's Imperial Presidency"

[kpete]

Editorial
Mr. Cheney's Imperial Presidency

Published: December 23, 2005

George W. Bush has quipped several times during his political career that it would be so much easier to govern in a dictatorship. Apparently he never told his vice president that this was a joke.

Virtually from the time he chose himself to be Mr. Bush's running mate in 2000, Dick Cheney has spearheaded an extraordinary expansion of the powers of the presidency - from writing energy policy behind closed doors with oil executives to abrogating longstanding treaties and using the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to invade Iraq, scrap the Geneva Conventions and spy on American citizens.

It was a chance Mr. Cheney seems to have been dreaming about for decades. Most Americans looked at wrenching events like the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal and the Iran-contra debacle and worried that the presidency had become too powerful, secretive and dismissive. Mr. Cheney looked at the same events and fretted that the presidency was not powerful enough, and too vulnerable to inspection and calls for accountability.

The president "needs to have his constitutional powers unimpaired, if you will, in terms of the conduct of national security policy," Mr. Cheney said this week as he tried to stifle the outcry over a domestic spying program that Mr. Bush authorized after the 9/11 attacks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/23/opinion/23fri1.html

[texpatriot2004]

1. Remember in America when we used to have 3 separate but

equal branches of the Federal Government...that really worked well, for such a long time too. I miss those days.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Impeachment of *: Out of the frying pan into the fire?

Better make a list for impeachment and add Cheney. Otherwise the Constitution makes him the VISIBLE President of the United States until 2009, provided that Cheney isn't "drafted" into running with the incumbency on his side.

* is expendable. Always has been. Cutting off the head and two more heads grow in the stump.

We need Abramoff to name names, for Fitzpatrick to issue more indictments, and for this whole regime to meet the fate of the Gotterdammerungg (Twilight of the Gods).

[rainy]

5. I have this fear that Abramoff will name lots of Dems and few

republicans. I hope there is enough evidence to not allow this to happen.

[Just Me]

3. Cheney abhors our system of government, hates a democratic republic.

Seeks to destroy it. An American dictator.

Doesn't that qualify him as a domestic enemy? :shrug:

I am sure he colluded to have the president commit a felony and act in contradiction of the Constitution in addition to co-conspiring in the outing of a CIA op tracking WMDs AND defrauding the American people into an illegal/unjust war. He's a criminal, for sure, and still walking the halls of the WH.

[Cooley Hurd]

4. This, coming from one of Bush's biggest enablers in the press...

..a bit too late, NYT.:eyes:

[ThomWV]

6. Cheney May Be Evil Personified --- But Bush Is The President

George Bush can not share the disgrace and distrust he has so rightfully earned by shoving part of it off on Cheney. Bush is the fucking president, not fucking cheney.

Lock them both up, but responsibility rests squarely on Bush.