The new Frontline on PBS

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/cheney/

You can watch the whole thing online from the "watch now" link.

Quote :

"For three decades Vice President Dick Cheney conducted a secretive, behind-closed-doors campaign to give the president virtually unlimited wartime power. Finally, in the aftermath of 9/11, the Justice Department and the White House made a number of controversial legal decisions. Orchestrated by Cheney and his lawyer David Addington, the department interpreted executive power in an expansive and extraordinary way, granting President George W. Bush the power to detain, interrogate, torture, wiretap and spy -- without congressional approval or judicial review. Now, as the White House appears ready to ignore subpoenas in the wiretapping and U.S. attorneys' cases, FRONTLINE's season premiere, Cheney's Law, airing Oct. 16, 2007, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings), examines the battle over the power of the presidency and Cheney's way of looking at the Constitution."

10/16/2007 9:37:43 PM

"Cheney's Law" sounds like the name of the best TV action series ever.

10/16/2007 9:42:52 PM

chaney's law: presidential powers will double every year

10/16/2007 9:47:11 PM

I actually just finished a pretty interesting book called The One Percent Doctrine that tries to explain Cheney's actions as maintaining the president's plausible deniability of any issue that could come back to bite him. Cheney cut his teeth during the Ford era and always felt that Nixon had done nothing wrong in Watergate aside from knowing too much about the lesser affairs of the republican party. In this sense he feels justified in conducting sordid business clandestinely as long as it is done in pursuit of the same goals as the administration's foreign policy. In the same vein, it was Cheney's office that produced the yellow cake from Niger comment prior to the the invasion of Iraq.

It's a decent read and it does a good job of avoiding painting anyone as a villain, which is a problem I have with political commentary as of late. While there may be some truth in what it has to say, it's kind of hard to swallow that his entire foreign policy doctrine was forged by one incident in presidential history.

BTW, I usually avoid political reads that have been New York Times bestsellers, but I was stuck at the Miami airport and needed something to read.

10/16/2007 9:52:01 PM

You copy and pasted that post, i've read it before.

10/16/2007 10:21:42 PM

You need to read a book called Takeover by Charlie Savage. The complete unconstitutional encroachment on separation of powers that began during Nixon is making me want to throw up. I've never been more infuriated reading a book.

10/16/2007 10:44:21 PM

Quote :

"...the department interpreted executive power in an expansive and extraordinary way, granting President George W. Bush the power to detain, interrogate, torture, wiretap and spy"

Wtf? Can people in Washington really do this? "Interpret" themselves to have more power and control? I thought we had checks and balances to prevent this sort of thing. Didn't anybody stand up to this and say "you can't do that, that's not what your position is suppose to be about"?

10/16/2007 10:52:19 PM

^ yes, they interpret, the courts then get the results of the interpretation and determine if legal/constitutional. Thanks to lawyers the law is all gray.

trivia - cheney and obama are 8th cousins

oh yeah, cheney's an ass

[Edited on October 16, 2007 at 11:04 PM. Reason : I <3 lawyers.... as long as <3 = loathe]

10/16/2007 11:02:31 PM

Yeah, I suppose a weak wartime president is preferable, right?

10/16/2007 11:07:36 PM

Yes, Chance, I did. You're so very clever.

10/16/2007 11:21:13 PM

^^ by weak do you mean, "cant win the damn war no matter what he tries"

[Edited on October 16, 2007 at 11:23 PM. Reason : ]

10/16/2007 11:21:45 PM

Quote :

"Yeah, I suppose a weak wartime president is preferable, right?"

I think he means that the pretext of war shouldn't be used to grab and consolidate powers and undermine the Constitution.

10/16/2007 11:24:53 PM

Quote :

"Yeah, I suppose a weak wartime president is preferable, right?"

No, but the president is not supposed to be the person who determines whether he's a wartime president or not. That's CONGRESS'S job!

"Notes of the Constitutional Convention, they argued, clearly show that other than in the NARROW case of REPELLING SUDDEN attacks, the Founders wanted Congress, not the commander in chief, to decide whether the country should go to war. James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution" and fourth president, wrote in 1795, "Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps, the most to be dreaded"--since it invariably leads to higher taxes, public debt, propaganda, and expanded governmental control. Yet history had shown that monarchs tended to like a state of war, because it increased their own power, while its costs were borne by ordinary citizens. Thus, Madison wrote, giving America's executive the power to decide on his own to wage war "would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments. The separation of the power of DECLARING war from that of CONDUCTING it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted."
-Takeover, chapter 4

10/17/2007 12:07:25 AM

^FTW

10/17/2007 1:38:55 AM

Quote :

"Yes, Chance, I did. You're so very clever."

i had read it too. and I was thinking the same thing. i think we're all aware of the well-established (if unwritten) rule here: that if you're going to do a wholesale cut and paste, acknowledge the source in some manner.

but don't sweat it too much, Josh. i'm sure it was just an oversight.





[Edited on October 17, 2007 at 2:40 AM. Reason : ]

10/17/2007 2:32:57 AM

c'mon guys didn't you learn about the 4th branch of government in 9th grade ELP class. Cheney made it perfectly clear in his public releases that he is neither apart of the executive or legislative branch.


There is the executive branch, legislative branch, judicial branch, and the Cheney Nazi Branch.

As much as i have bitched about bush i have always said the real anti-christ in the administration is Dick (cocksucker gestapo) cheney

10/17/2007 9:44:20 AM

^^I don't think it's out of bounds to cut and paste without a source if it's your own words--which in this case I believe it is.

10/17/2007 10:05:09 AM

^^^ You really expect people to cite themselves?

10/17/2007 10:28:38 AM

^, ^^

no you misunderestimate me. He cut and pasted that from teh Intarweb. I read it online somewhere....

hang on....


here, see:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Cheney+cut+his+teeth+during+the+Ford+era%22






























Sorry, Joshua. i need to pay attention more. 'specially when it comes to Chance




[Edited on October 17, 2007 at 11:33 AM. Reason : ]

10/17/2007 11:32:07 AM

I thought that I was God.

10/17/2007 11:45:40 AM

ush = Count Dooku
==

Chaney == Darth Sidious

==

10/18/2007 12:46:08 PM