No Checks, No Balances -- No Supervision? By Dan Froomkin / WaPo

[Demeter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/06/25/BL2007062500874.html?referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email

No Checks, No Balances -- No Supervision?

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, June 25, 2007; 1:38 PM



Midway through a massive and momentous Washington Post series on Vice President Cheney, it's clearer than ever that one thing missing from Cheney's worldview is any appreciation for checks and balances -- not just among the three branches of government, but also within his own.

Please go read parts one and two of this important series by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, then come back. Gellman's narrated photo gallery works as a pithy overview.

Sunday's installment depicts Cheney as the guiding force behind the most radical elements of the Bush presidency. Today's installment describes Cheney's responsibility for the administration's torture policies in particular. Tomorrow's will focus on his influence on economic policy, and Wednesday's will detail his impact on environmental policy.

Gellman and Becker write that "Cheney is not, by nearly every inside account, the shadow president of popular lore." Yet in most decisions Gellman and Becker describe, President Bush's role is essentially to sign whatever Cheney has put in front of him. The series offers ample evidence that within the Bush administration, dissenters from Cheney's views are bullied, marginalized or fired -- with apparently no effective pushback from Bush or any of his other top aides. It's a stunning portrait.

The series is invaluable in providing concrete examples of the enormous and influential role that Cheney has long been suspected of playing in this White House. But given all that's transpired in the last year or so, it seems inconceivable that Cheney still wields as much influence as he once did. What I'm most curious about right now is whether, or how, Cheney's grip is slipping.

Outside the White House, Cheney's credibility is now almost zero, due to his errors of judgment on Iraq and his nearly delusional assertions about the war, as well as the cloud over his own conduct raised by the conviction of his former chief of staff for perjury.....

AN EXCELLENT SERIES: THE WATERGATE PAPERS, THE ELLSBERG PAPERS, OF OUR TIMES