http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10739869/site/newsweek/But a small, powerful group of ideologically committed Bush administration officials, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, had a more far-reaching agenda: to prove at virtually every turn that the Constitution vests in the president near unfettered powers in the conduct of national security policy. The principle became such an article of faith that upholding it often trumped the wisdom—and necessity—of individual policies. Playing out behind the scenes was a bitter struggle between the proponents of presidential supremacy during wartime and traditionalists, often career civil servants, who wanted to maintain the balance of power. A healthy tension between the two should serve as an important check on overreaching by ideologues or on the indolence of time-serving bureaucrats.
But for the Cheneyites, the reflexive response to push back has been to dig in, seek no accommodation and tolerate little dissent. As a result, the administration formulated a series of policies—from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib—that have weakened America’s hand in the world and sown distrust at home. The irony is that Cheney could end up eroding the very principles he is so ardently seeking to strengthen. Lately, the administration has been fighting—and sometimes losing—a two-front war against Congress and the federal courts as these branches seek to pull back the executives reins, if ever so slightly. Earlier this month, legislators forced the White House to accept a ban against cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees, removing any ambiguity in the law, even in “ticking time bomb” cases where harsh interrogation methods could foil plots to kill thousands. And the federal courts have intervened to provide detainees held outside of the civilian legal system the right of appeal and other procedural protections.
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CHENEYITES... is that a new word???...its a CULT!!!
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