How criminal is President Cheney?

Pretty much, says John Dean, who is a leading authority on such matters, in The Misunderestimated Mr. Cheney Findlaw.com 06/29/07:

In fact, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a law that Cheney believes does apply to him, whether that law be major or minor. For example, he has claimed that most of the laws passed in the aftermath of Watergate were unconstitutional, and thus implicitly inapplicable. His office oversees signing statements claiming countless new laws will not be honored except insofar as the President's extremely narrow interpretation allows. He does not believe the War Powers Act should be honored by the President. Nor, in his view, should the President be bothered with laws like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). In fact, it appears Cheney has actively encouraged defiance of such laws by the Bush Administration.

For Cheney, the Geneva Conventions - considered among the nation's most important treaties - are but quaint relics that can be ignored. Thus, he publicly embraced their violation when, on an Idaho talk radio program, he said he was not troubled in the slightest by our forces using "waterboarding" - the simulated drowning of detainees to force them to talk. There are serious questions as to whether Cheney himself has also conspired to violate the War Crimes Act, which can be a capital crime.

Then there's that little matter about record-keeping:

A man who can so easily disregard the War Powers Act, FISA, the Geneva Conventions, and the War Crimes Act is merely flicking fleas when it comes to complying with laws like the Presidential Records Act, which requires him to keep records. Yet as CNN and other news organizations have reported, Cheney ordered the destruction of the visitor logs to his residence. These, of course, are presidential records the law requires him to preserve and protect. (Indeed, neighbors of the Vice President were surprised when, in the past, a truck for a document shredding service would regularly visit the Vice President's residence at the Naval Observatory.) (my emphasis)

Dean is also in the Cheney-is-calling-a-lot-of-the-shots camp of Presidential analysis:

Those with whom I have spoken have serious doubt that Bush and the White House staff really knows what Cheney is doing, why he is doing it, or how he is doing it. From the outset of this administration, Cheney has been instrumental in placing people loyal to him throughout the Executive Branch. This is not to say that Bush is not "the decider," for he is, but by shaping the debate and controlling the paper flow, Cheney decides what the decider will decide.

It has long been apparent that Cheney's genius is that he lets George W. Bush get out of bed every morning actually believing he is the President. In fact, his presidency is run by the President of the Senate, for Cheney is its true center of gravity. That fact has become more apparent with every passing year of this presidency, and anyone who thinks otherwise has truly "misunderestimated" our nominal president and his vice president. (my emphasis)

That squares with my understanding from afar of Cheney's role. No one should let Bush off the hook for his administration's actions. But Cheney is weilding unprecedented power and influence for a Vice President.

Tags: authoritarianism, cheney