While Vice President Dick Cheney's assertions and actions regarding the White House's power no longer surprise most Americans, his recent comments show a man blinded by the height of arrogance.
Last week, Cheney said he has been ignoring a presidential order for offices of the executive branch to account for classified information for the past four years, dating back to when President Bush renewed the policy. Cheney claims his office is exempt from the order because as president of the Senate, he is actually part of the legislature, an ill-concocted, inaccurate and thinly veiled justification for his pompous and now embarrassing admission.
Cheney further soiled the situation by trying to dissolve the Information Security Oversight Office, a branch of the National Archives that enforces rules for classified information in executive agencies. Such a retaliatory action only further characterizes the vice president as a longtime politician who feels his interests are more important than decades of political precedent and, more importantly, those whom he serves.
It also strikes as curious that Cheney would choose to act as though he is above the law regarding an important but somewhat mundane issue - protecting the safety of classified documents.
So what's the proper response to Cheney's power-drunk blunder?
In predictable partisan fashion, some Democrats have threatened to pull funding for the vice president's office - which of course Cheney says is part of the legislature - a move soaked in partisan politics that would only inhibit government from carrying out its duties.
Impeachment, as a few souls have suggested, would accomplish little besides further aggravating our country's political divide.
The proper response is for Americans to elect leaders who have a better understanding of the need for a balance of power in federal government in hopes the next president and vice president will have more respect for the roles to which they were elected. Let's hope our next vice president has a more responsible view of his or her power.
- From The Lahontan Valley News