Unlimited Government

Here we see Dick Cheney and someone we have to assume is David Addington arguing explicitly that the president is above the law:

Two questions remain, officials said. One involves techniques to be authorized now. The other is whether any technique should be explicitly forbidden. According to participants in the debate, the vice president stands by the view that Bush need not honor any of the new judicial and legislative restrictions. His lawyer, they said, has recently restated Cheney's argument that when courts and Congress "purport to" limit the commander in chief's warmaking authority, he has the constitutional prerogative to disregard them.

One could imagine the view that the president has a constitutional obligation to veto any congressional efforts to limit his warmaking authority (by, e.g., prohibiting torture, which is what's at issue here). One could imagine a stronger view that the courts have a constitutional obligation to defer to the executive branch in the case of a legal controversy over congressional efforts to prevent the executive branch from torturing people. Cheney, here, is standing on the strongest view imaginable -- that the executive branch can sign laws banning torture, then keep torturing people, then lose a lawsuit over it, and then just keep on torturing people because, hey, he's the president.

Michael Gerson, Washington Post columnist, CFR fellow, former White House speech writer, and nominal Christian musters the view that the vice president's strong stand in favor of illegally torturing people is "principled" which is, I guess, good for him.

Comments

Also keep in mind this is all supposed to be happening in secret. It's only because things "went wrong," ie the maximalists didn't get all of what they wanted, that this is coming to light at all. In their mind, it's not like the electorate should get a chance to check the policy every four years when there's an election. They are simply for absolute power over every sphere, up to and including an individual's physical body, without limit.

Posted by Marshall | June 25, 2007 8:28 AM

Nominal?

One can have atrocious politics and still be more than a nominal Christian. UBL is more than a nominal Muslim despite knocking down office buildings full of people.

Religions with universal aspirations comfortably accommodate folks with atrocious politics.

I believe the better word choice for your meaning would be "hypocritical professional Christian" rather than "nominal Christian".

-----

You need to watch John from Cincinnati again to suss out how imperfect people are still the children of god.

Posted by Petey | June 25, 2007 8:29 AM

Hey- just because they are nightmarishly evil principles doesn't mean that they are not principles.

Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | June 25, 2007 8:33 AM

Do we have any good info about David Addington's background and political views? Wikipedia points to various 1980s jobs, including at CIA and for Reagan on Iran-Contra. But what are his substantive political commitments, and do we know what he was up to politically between 1993 and 2001, when wiki says rather blandly that he was working for law firms and setting up a pro-Cheney PAC?

Posted by otto | June 25, 2007 8:33 AM

"His lawyer, they said, has recently restated Cheney's argument that when courts and Congress "purport to" limit the commander in chief's warmaking authority, he has the constitutional prerogative to disregard them"

And for displaying blatant disregard for the constitution, Congress has the authority to impeach them. So.. what are they waiting for? Stop them now before they engineer another war-of-choice.

Posted by 2cynicalbyhalf | June 25, 2007 8:35 AM

And, the principle is autocracy. What's so complicated about that?

Posted by MattF | June 25, 2007 8:45 AM

I guess - I think - I can understand why Cheney and his minions would espouse this kind of Star Chamber stuff.

What I really can't understand is why there are still so many onlookers who are willing to back him up. Do they care so little for the constitution? For centuries-old rights? I'm not being facetious, or putting rhetorical questions - what can they possibly be thinking?

And most of them, presumably, accept that these unchecked powers will one day be a Democratic President's to wield. What can they possibly be thinking?

Posted by Dave L | June 25, 2007 9:06 AM

There are only 2 checks on the power of the president: not voting for the funds necessary for his acts and impeachment. Everything else is courtesy and tradition. Bush and Cheney don't believe in courtesy or tradition.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 25, 2007 9:33 AM

the principle is autocracy.

Or Führerprinzip, in the original German . . .

Posted by rea | June 25, 2007 10:06 AM

Otto, find Jane Mayer's article on Addington in the New Yorker.

musters the view that the vice president's strong stand in favor of illegally torturing people is "principled"

To adapt Stendhal: courtiers, whose souls are empty, are impressed by "principles" as such.

"The Fuehrer is always right" is a principle. Just not an admirable one.

The "at least they have principles" bit is just a variant of the "at least they're sincere" bit that Allan Bloom, in The Closing of the American Mind, mocked as typical liberal thinking.

Posted by Anderson | June 25, 2007 10:08 AM

And most of them, presumably, accept that these unchecked powers will one day be a Democratic President's to wield. What can they possibly be thinking?

I assure you that Republicans will suddenly re-discover their reverence for a strict interpretation of the Constitution, the moment a Democrat is elected to the White House.

If you don't think these assholes can't turn on a rhetorical dime, then you haven't been paying attention the last 15 years.

Posted by r€nato | June 25, 2007 11:01 AM

jeffrey, you're not following the narrative arc here correctly: there is nothing in dick cheney's theory of the executive branch that should lead you to assume that cutting off funding will change anything.

Posted by howard | June 25, 2007 11:07 AM

You can't spend what you don't got.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 25, 2007 11:18 AM

The paragraph you quote gave me a chill. I knew about their view of mere congress, but I didn't know that they rejected the authority of the Supreme Court too. They are absolutists. George III never claimed the authority claimed by George XVIII.

On a much lighter note, the photograph is the first image I have seen of Addington. It confirms the best established hypothesis in the social sciences -- never trust a conservative with facial hair.

I also noticed something else. Addington is thin but has rather prominent cheeks (or jowls). I think the beard is meant to hide them. I do want to be rude, but I don't quite dare mention any other person about whom I have that theory in this comment.

Posted by Robert Waldmann | June 25, 2007 11:27 AM

jeffrey, there's loads of money washing around the government, all of it very easy to divert by an executive that wants to (think about all the iraq spending before there was any authorization).

a normal government you could cut off funding for something and it would stop: bush-cheney is not a normal government.

Posted by howard | June 25, 2007 11:32 AM

"You can't spend what you don't got.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 25, 2007 11:18 AM "

Welcome to the fun world of Pentagon spending. A defense department-war profiteers pact can always find capital from somewhere. If worst comes to worst, just print more money. Cheney thinks deficits don't matter, so would anyone be surprised to learn he doesn't think inflation matters either? There's evidence that there are more dollars in circulation the past few years than the federal government admits to printing, which some have wondered was done by the Bush administration to get more dollars in circulation to boost consumer spending and confidence and make his economic policies look better than they really are.

Posted by Reality Man | June 25, 2007 2:37 PM

Yeah, Jeffrey, read up on the Pentagon's "black budgets" sometime. Congress doesn't even know how much money is in those accounts.

Posted by mq | June 25, 2007 4:53 PM