I don't know Dick

After all these years, I just don't get Dick Cheney. Yeah, I understand that he's evil; we all do. But how did he manage to carve out so much power for himself? When LBJ was Vice President, the office was considered so unimportant that Johnson saw no problem with keeping his private telephone number listed. He was given only one line into the White House; most cabinet heads had several.

(Side note: The CIA's James Jesus Angelton also kept a public number. He didn't want people to consider him paranoid.)

Today, most people on the left, and even many on the right, wonder whether the White House is run by Dubya or Dick. I'd love to see the results of a national poll on that question: "Who do you think is really in charge of the United States...?"

Now we see a renewal of the ongoing debate over the very nature of the Office of the Vice President. The following comes to us by way of Kathy over at Larisa's blog:

The Office of the Vice President is not an "agency" for purposes of the executive order on classification and therefore its classification and declassification activity no longer need be reported to the Information Security Oversight Office, the Justice Department finally informed ISOO Director Bill Leonard in a newly disclosed letter (pdf).

In a January 9, 2007 letter to the Attorney General, Director Leonard had questioned the OVP's refusal since 2003 to submit to normal oversight. He was following up on a complaint (pdf) filed with ISOO by the Federation of American Scientists, which was also forwarded to the Attorney General.

The OVP's position is not consistent with a "plain text reading" of the executive order, Mr. Leonard wrote (pdf) to the Attorney General at that time.

Be that as it may, the President's intention is that the Office of Vice President should not be considered an "agency" for purposes of oversight, Steven G. Bradbury of the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel wrote to Mr. Leonard on July 20, 2007 on behalf of the Attorney General. He cited another letter ((pdf) to that effect from White House counsel Fred Fielding.

I had planned to append a witty remark to this display of arrogance. But this is beyond humor.