Legislative, Executive, Judicial, Cheney

by: phillip anderson

Sun Jun 24, 2007 at 11:13:02 AM EDT

Remember how much time we spent debating which phones Al Gore might have been using for fundraising? It all seemed rather silly at the time.

Now we've got a VP who believes himself to be a de facto fourth branch of the federal government.

Across the board, the vice president's office goes to unusual lengths to avoid transparency. Cheney declines to disclose the names or even the size of his staff, generally releases no public calendar and ordered the Secret Service to destroy his visitor logs. His general counsel has asserted that "the vice presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch," and is therefore exempt from rules governing either. Cheney is refusing to observe an executive order on the handling of national security secrets, and he proposed to abolish a federal office that insisted on auditing his compliance.

(Graphic shamelessly stolen from the folks at Rochester Turning)