EDITORIALS : In the Shadows
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007
The deeper we get into the
Cheney presidency —
pardon us, the Cheney shadow presidency — the more obvious it becomes that no matter where Mr. Cheney is, his whereabouts really can be best described as an “ undisclosed location. ” More and more, Cheney seems to occupy a place in government most Americans have a hard time locating on any map, or in any civics text. We know of course that Mr. Cheney is the vice president. The real question, as it has been all along, is whether Mr. Cheney knows that. At the very least, he seems to have trouble with the idea that his office, no matter how “ undisclosed” he’d like it to be, is not unaccountable. The vice president has refused to comply with a presidential executive order requiring executive branch offices to inform the National Archives when documents are classified or declassified. In 2001 and 2002, the veep’s office complied with the order, but since then, Cheney has ignored it. The reasoning: Cheney representatives say the vice president’s office is not an “ agency” or “ entity” within the executive branch, and as such isn’t subject to the order. That the vice president’s office isn’t part of the executive branch has come as news to much of the rest of the government. It’s hard not to appreciate the point made by congressional Democrats who’ve suggested, somewhat humorously, that perhaps funding for Mr. Cheney’s office should be withheld until he decides which branch of government he actually inhabits.
But there’s really no place here for bad jokes or posturing. This isn’t funny, and it shouldn’t be politicized. We can think of few areas where partisanship has less place than in the handling of documents related to national security.
Even more ominous than the lack of reporting by Cheney’s office is an assertion, made by a National Archives official, that in 2004 Cheney kept the Archives from inspecting his office to make sure classified materials were being adequately safeguarded.
National security documents are not pieces in the vice president’s personal library — they belong to the government, of which he is an employee. When it comes to handling these documents, Mr. Cheney should follow the same rules other executivebranch agencies follow. He should not be allowed to make up his own rules as he sees fit.
Almost everyone seems to understand that except for Vice President Cheney, and, of course, President Bush, who’s giving the veep a free pass on this one.
It’s hard not to wonder how many times that’s happened — and where the country might be today if it never had.
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