Cheney Argues For Nixon-Era Powers - Toronto Star

Watergate eroded presidential clout - VP comments fuel firestorm in U.S.

Dec. 21, 2005. 01:00 AM

TIM HARPER - WASHINGTON BUREAU

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WASHINGTON—U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney has upped the ante in a burgeoning scandal over the use of unauthorized wiretaps in the United States, touting the Bush administration's success in restoring presidential powers that were stripped during the Richard Nixon era.

Cheney said the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War wrongly eroded the executive power of the White House, something he and U.S. President George W. Bush have remedied during their war on terror.

The U.S. vice-president spoke on a day when some moderate Republicans joined Democratic calls for a congressional inquiry into whether Bush broke the law by authorizing wiretaps without court permission.

At least two Democrats suggested Bush could be impeached for his alleged crimes and the White House scrambled late in the day to try to counter the perception that Bush had deliberately misled the nation when he spoke about wiretaps in April 2004.

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Link: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Render&c=Article&cid=1135119019228&call_pageid=968332188492

That's right DICK... piss off congress even more... they've got your fate in their hands now.

Man... this is gettin good.

:popcorn:

as the book they twist to their own purposes teaches, 'pride goeth before a fall.'

the arrogance is simply jaw-dropping.

watergate PROPERLY eroded presidential power.

more parallels between these cases every day.

Sidney Blumenthal

All of Dick's nasty history

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/printer_112505N.shtml

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The Long March of Dick Cheney
By Sidney Blumenthal
Salon.com

Thursday 24 November 2005

For his entire career, he sought untrammeled power. The Bush presidency and 9/11 finally gave it to him - and he's not about to give it up.
The hallmark of the Dick Cheney administration is its illegitimacy. Its essential method is bypassing established lines of authority; its goal is the concentration of unaccountable presidential power. When it matters, the regular operations of the CIA, Defense Department and State Department have been sidelined.

Richard Nixon is the model, but with modifications. In the Nixon administration, the president was the prime mover, present at the creation of his own options, attentive to detail, and conscious of their consequences. In the Cheney administration, the president is volatile but passive, firm but malleable, presiding but absent. Once his complicity has been arranged, a closely held "cabal" - as Lawrence Wilkerson, once chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, calls it - wields control.

Within the White House, the office of the vice president is the strategic center. The National Security Council has been demoted to enabler and implementer. Systems of off-line operations have been laid to evade professional analysis and a responsible chain of command. Those who attempt to fulfill their duties in the old ways have been humiliated when necessary, fired, retired early or shunted aside. In their place, acolytes and careerists indistinguishable from true believers in their eagerness have been elevated.

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