PUNISH THE PREZ
Bush and his adolescent administrators deserve discipline before future leaders follow by example
BY MIKE ZIGLER
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Mike Zigler is editor of Liberty Watch: The Magazine. After serving as news editor at Las Vegas CityLife and editor-in-chief at the UNLV Rebel Yell, he currently directs internal communications on the Las Vegas Strip. Feel free to reach him at mikezigler@cox.net
Other stories by Mike Zigler
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It reads like a headline straight out of the satirical publication The Onion:
"Cheney asserts he’s part of the legislative branch." Rather, it appeared in the Boston Globe on June 22 with the following lead:
"Dick Cheney, who has wielded extraordinary executive power as he transformed the image of the vice presidency, is asserting that his office is not actually part of the executive branch."
I haven’t found Comedy Central’s newest addition — Lil’ Bush — that comical (given the degree of material the last six-plus years have provided), but it purely encapsulates the mentality of this administration. They’re unaccountable children running amuck like bedwetting
A.D.D. suffers playing the video game Halo with few (if hardly any) consequences — aside from media scrutiny and a momentary game-over status. Problem is, Earth is their TV screen.
For four years, Vice President Dick Cheney has resisted routine oversight of his office’s handling of classified information. When the office in charge of overseeing classification in the executive branch objected, the vice president’s office suggested that the oversight office be shut down, according to documents released by a Democratic congressman last month.
Officials familiar with Cheney’s view said that he and his legal adviser, David S. Addington, do not believe the executive order applies to the vice president’s office because it has a legislative as well as an executive status in the Constitution. Addington stated in conversations that the vice president’s office was not an “entity within the executive branch” because, under the Constitution, the vice president also plays a role in the legislative branch, as president of the Senate, able to cast a vote in the event of a tie.
Guess there’s a fourth branch, which I’m jazzed to learn of, since judicial cannot possibly be the arena — under his definition, of course.
It’s as if these overgrown play-pen pals are double-dog daring one another to see what they can get away with.
For example, three months after American voters eliminated Republican control of Congress in hopes of sending a message to the White House, primarily stemming from a problem in Mesopotamia, our reckless leader announces a troop surge. In May, his Department of Defense extends troop tours from 12 to 15 months,
while bitching about congressional Democrats’ unwillingness to fund the war
and claiming that extended tours will actually improve troop morale.
Now it seems Cheney was on the receiving end of the most recent truth-or-dare proposal. Like all of his peers, he chose the dare. Condoleezza and Company’s proposition is classic: I dare you to claim Veep isn’t part of the executive branch. (She dare not propose that to Bush, should he have been on the flip side of the ’00 ticket. It would have only added to his current and pathetic reputation.)
But Cheney is in another field. He may just actually pull off the dare. Just look at the congressman from Illinois, Rahm Emmanuel. He’s wasting taxpayer time to consider removing Cheney from the executive branch’s annual budget payroll of $4.75 million to the legislative’s compensation of $275,000, claiming to be calling Cheney’s bluff.
On the optimistic side, the measure would save taxpayers $4.5 million — or about 2
cents per American. On the realistic side, it’s wasting us much more to debate. Emmanuel claims to just be following the “Vice President’s logic.” All he’s doing is playing into it by wasting congressional time on matters that matter least, all while entertaining his political ego for press coverage.
If any time should be spent considering the current administration, it should be on the issue of impeachment. Andrew Johnson, an unpopular post-Civil War leader lenient toward ex-Confederates, was impeached for testing the 1867 Tenure of Office Act,
which prohibited the president from dismissing office holders without Senate approval. Richard Nixon avoided impeachment by
resignation. Clinton was the second president to endure impeachment. He got a blow job in the White House and lied about it.
But in this administration’s era of profane ignorance, constitutional disregard and downright hate, the possibilities of impeachment are endless. Just like children, Bush and his diaper-bearing buds deserve discipline. Otherwise, they set the stage for the next batch of playground fools.
