Wrangling the Angler: Part One

A few weeks ago, I asked readers to check out the Washington Post’s series of reports on Vice President dick Cheney (“The Angler”) and his impact on the executive branch (here). Today begins a four part series of ruminations inspired by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker’s stellar reporting. There is no new information here outside of what The Post offers, and yet, many philosophical questions about executive power and the moral implications of the VP’s behavior go unasked and unpondered. Such things should be left to people like Hedrick Hertzberg (here) and unknown internet yahoos like myself. Today’s thoughts deal with the first article, in which the reporters provide an overview into the ways in which Cheney has sought to increase the role of the VP in developing policy. Warning, this first part is the longest:

1. Regarding the VP’s desire to expand the office of the vice-president: It is not beyond the VP’s power to strive do more than others have done before, but rather it is the executive leader (The President) who should, not only have the final say but, hopefully, be the originator of policy, as he has (ideally) been elected leader of (let’s borrow a term) “the free world” for his vision, and should thus temper those in his office who would make themselves originators and “deciders” of policy. In this regard, collaboration is celebrated, as long as it is guided with a willful hand.
2. Regarding the VP’s mandate (approved by the president) to have access to “every table and every meeting”, and making his voice heard in “whatever area the vice president feels he wants to be active in.”: A historical anomaly. Seriously, ask Harry Truman, who assumed the presidency during WWII with virtually no knowledge of the Manhattan Project as well as other military initiatives. This is not a bad thing. By compartmentalizing information, The President has the autonomy to function without fear of his potential successor and rival (what other job has that perk: think Regan/Bush Sr. or Adams/Jefferson or Bartlet/Hoynes), while also, historically, giving VP’s culpable deniability regarding controversial policies and actions, all geared towards extending the political life of the party in power once The President steps down (or is voted out). Something Cheney has, by not actually being interested in actually being president (but wanting that power), all but annihilated. Pity the VP who would follow Cheney and shoulder the task of rebuilding a tarnished office that was, until recently, innocuous and safe, in essence, the PR representative of the executive office (straight-laced and socially responsible Al Gore helped Clinton way more than he hurt him, Dan Quayle made Bush senior look like a genius.) With approval numbers in the teens, Cheney, because of his close proximity to the President, is toxic to the President’s own approval ratings (see: shooting old man in the face). Such men (VPs) must henceforth be eunuchs and glad-handers, party sycophants to the point that we cringe at the thought of them assuming power (like Ford, Cheney’s former boss). If there is a benefit from such things, it is that, hopefully, voters will elect a candidate (of either party) in 08 who appears to be the unquestioned leader of vision, as well as demonstrating an ability to manage and control his office. Something Bush has clearly never done.
3. Regarding Cheney’s role in “making up lists” of nominees to the secretary of state, defense, and treasury: Who among us hasn’t made a list of the things we wanted? My mother makes me do it every Christmas. Still, the remarkable similarities regarding Cheney’s list and Bush’s final appointments give one pause. The question being: At any point did The President inform Cheney that—hey!—this was my cabinet? If not, the follow-up question should be: My God, did he (the President) even know he had to make his own list?
4. Regarding Cheney’s invented “Treated as: Secret/SCI” stamp: What can be said that John Stewart hasn’t already said? Allow me to quote him, “…apparently the governments “top secret” and “classified” don’t sound appropriately Blofeldian. The best part is, Cheney uses the stamp on things like political talking points for staff members who are going to deal with reporters. In other words: stuff he wants the public to know. Which I’m not sure he understands, is the opposite…of secret.
5. Regarding the testimony of eye witnesses who observed Cheney in the immediate aftermath of September 11^th, and who, apparently, saw none of the “profound psychological transformation that was imputed to Cheney” following the tragedy: You’ll forgive me if I question the ability of “witnesses” to prescribe a psychological assessment of the VP in the wake of the largest tragedy in American history (I’m sure they had their own things going on). As someone who takes bad news with a straight face, often times with delayed bewildered surprise, much in the way I do when getting a gift or present gift that is actually something I want, I find such opinions to reek of mudslinging. To that I say: Why rely on supposition when we can let facts do the work for us.
6. Regarding Cheney’s use of the term “robust interrogation” in discussing “interrogation methods” that have included (a brief sampling): sexual humiliation, water-boarding, rape, electrocution, sensory deprivation, etc.: Some definitions of the words robust: “strong and healthy”, “requiring bodily strength”, “rich and full bodied (in flavor)”, “boisterous”. Now Cheney’s use of the term suggests one of three things. One: He has never opened a dictionary and thus has no idea what the word “robust” actually means, and therefore was unable to find another term that adequately skirted the type of “interrogation” Cheney sought to employ on enemy combatants, thus making him not as smart as people prescribe him to be. Two: To him, a good interrogation is a type of sport and suspected terrorists should think of water-boarding as a particularly hard and vigorous pat on the butt during competition. Three: The combined smell of blood, bodily waste, ejaculate, burnt flesh and hair, as well as the echoing sound of humiliation, agony and fear, in short, complete human desperation, is something to be savored. You know, like a good pinot noir.
7. Assertions form John Yoo (more on him tomorrow) that the war on terrorism was “different, you can’t predict what might come up”: True. But starting with how far the President can take “it”, versus discussing up front what should be “off the table”, imply two differencing moralities regarding conflict, but, in this instance, a perceived war of cultures. The first would see events carried through to an inevitable end regardless of the losses (to reputation, lives, soul, etc.). The other would seek to establish, up front, how to maintain our moral integrity on a new battlefield, an assertion that, regardless of the tenacity of our foe and their methods, that we hold certain truths to be “self evident” and that national integrity implies a resolve, both as much about restraint as in the prosecution of an objective.
8. Regarding Cheney’s bypassing Congress, the courts, and the ranking national security lawyer (John Bellinger III) that were likely to object to his warrant-less wiretapping proposal: Sorry, Dick. The American people are citizens guaranteed rights by the constitution. When such a proposal potentially involves the citizenry who are the foundation for the government (we’re not talking enemy combatants here), in whose framework you occupy only a portion of, it is Congress’ and the judicial’s right to vet and (yes) potentially disagree with certain proposals. Indeed, it is their constitutional obligation. To function in a government in which there is no legislative or judicial oversight is to function within a monarchy. So how does one completely bypass the ranking national security lawyer, who’s job it is to use his expertise to make sure the federal government successfully navigates the waters of national security? Unless Bellinger was a terrorist himself, I find it hard to believe he wasn’t as passionate about using all the tools at his disposable to combat terrorism. But then again, it has always been the position of the VP that if you aren’t joining his fight than you must be fighting for the other guys.
9. Regarding the Washington Post’s assertion that the warrantless wiretapping was, only a month after Sept. 11th (Oct.) and a month before Bush signed off on it (Nov), already in full gear, and how this was one of the “most closely compartmented secrets”: So compartmented Bush even knew? This goes beyond the myth of culpable deniability (Regan/Contra), and instead extends directly into the constitutional framework of the executive branch. Meaning something like this should never have been green-lit, or even instigated, without Presidential approval and (one would hope) inception. So did it? Did Cheney implement this on his own, or did Bush sign off (in theory) when it is clear to The Post (and the rest of the world) that he himself did not conceive or organize such a program. Thus we have the ultimate chicken and egg. If the president was out of the loop, the historical legacy of his administration can rely on American skepticism and its penchant for nostalgia regarding the actual power and role of the VP in policy (the image of Quayle and potatoes). Conversely, since we operate, as Truman would have wished (nay, expected) that “the buck stops here” (i.e. Bush) and Cheney is just the dutiful VP, thereby skirting consequence and accountability (something he has so far, masterfully, done). If this is the case, then Cheney is a coward, and his constant denials, obstructions, and continued falsehoods (Iraq and Al Qaeda, thick as thieves) the chicanery of a delusional Emperor, his purple robes as lithe and transparent as the most tactile fantasy.
10. Regarding the fact that Ashcroft, due to Cheney’s manipulations, could not “get an audience” with the president regarding the prosecution of terrorist in the justice department: Who did Ashcroft thing he was, The Attorney General? Wait… Didn’t he see Cheney’s big board?
11. Regarding Cheney’s assertion that suspected terrorists “do not deserve to be treated as prisoners of war”: What do terrorist deserve, exactly? Do members of Al Qaeda view themselves as terrorists? Obviously, no. Do they see themselves as at war with the west? Obviously, they do. Do we diminish them by not going to “war” war with them, thereby having to engage the universally acceptable standard of behavior? Then why call it a “war” on terror? Why not do what we’ve done (call a spade a spade) and wear the mantel proudly: that we, the United States, are terrorists (confiscating citizens across the globe and spiriting them away to secret prisons, engaging in torture, etc.), battling terrorists of the world as unconventionally callous as they do, with no regard for the rights of humanity, so that collateral death and cultural humiliation are the tools of the day. After all, that’s what terrorists do. With such a declaration, who would argue that the perceived “enemy” should be given any rights?
12. Regarding David S. Addington’s assertion that if the administration had followed Colin Powell’s lead (a defender of “obsolete” and “quaint” rules) the US would be “obligated” to provide athletic gear and commissary privileges to captured terrorists: Should we be surprised that men who’ve never entered combat, and therefore never had to live with the mounting dread of captivity at the hands of an enemy, should care so little about the treatment of those captured? Morally, we should be surprised, as there are countless veterans, from various wars, who could speak to the evils of torture, or, possibly, the character of societies we’ve come into conflict with who value their fellow man and realize that his duties as a soldier to nation and home do not make him the instigator of conflict. We should be surprised, given the fact that had they (Cheney and legal counsel) crossed the street to talk to Colin Powell, or if they could spare the time, hopped the metro to meet with John McCain, they could have been informed of such things.