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As you’ve no doubt read by now, this weekend brought fresh allegations about former Vice President Dick Cheney and his seeming unending capacity for evil-doing.

Dicking Around: Cheney's Policies Could Help the Dems Achieve Their Goals

But, just in case: According to the New York Times, “[t]he Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees….” As the posturing about investigations and culpability began on the Sunday morning talk shows, the Times hadn’t yet been able to track Cheney down for a quote. This is, of course, nothing more than par for the veteran pol, whose resume includes less snarly stints in the Ford and Bush senior administrations, before he grimaced his way to that undisclosed location on September 11, 2001 — and who seemed to treat every interview like a hostile interrogation. And while we’d love (for entertainment’s sake) for him to return to the public eye with some sort of grand vinegar-y denial, the man is probably more interested in playing out the string in friendly Wyoming than returning to his position as Bush administration fall guy. Besides, despite the occasional jab at the current administration, he’s got no motivation for a comeback tour: His play — returning what he deems to be adequate executive power to the office of the president, what seems to be his singular political motivation for his actions from 2001-2008 — has already been made. And maybe we should stop busting on him for it.

In 2005, the Washington Post offered up a piece that discussed the history of Cheney’s efforts to strengthen the power of the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government. According to reporters Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei, he told the Air Force Two press gang that “the period after the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War proved to be ‘the nadir of the modern presidency in terms of authority and legitimacy’ and harmed the chief executive’s ability to lead in a complicated, dangerous era.” Given the chance by Bush to affect some sort of change in the way the U.S. bureaucracy functions, he snapped it up, taking multiple opportunites to find legal conflicts where the Bush administration could broaden the scope of the President’s power. So successful had these efforts been that Cheney could, four years before Barack Obama would take the oath of office, claim to Baker and VandeHei that  “I do think that to some extent now we’ve been able to restore the legitimate authority of the presidency.”

The statement turned out to be somewhat premature. Scandals over wire-tapping, torture, and other abuses of power would cloud the rest of the Bush presidency and perhaps help pave the way for the massive GOP failure this past November. Among Obama’s first acts was the symbolic rejection of the Bush/Cheney core philosophy. And though the shuttering of Guantanamo may never quite take effect, the new administration deemed the issue important enough to the nation’s psyche that it tried its best to close the facility within hours of taking office. But then it seemed to take a breath. And as it did it seemed to realize the benefits of the Cheney era: Attorney General Eric Holder invoked the State Secrets provision in a law suit against the Boeing corporation, which may have participated in the Bush/Cheney extraordinary rendition program — an action that seemed to defend the removal of terrorism suspects to countries where they might be better … interrogated. The administration’s lawyers also sought to dismiss a law suit against the telecommunications companies that had participated in the secret NSA wire-tapping program – a seeming nod to the idea that it was okay for their predecessors to demand data in a way that was eventually ruled to be unconstitutional. And they further received a friendly judicial ruling which allowed it to, according to the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder, “indefinitely detain several classes of belligerents,” a seemingly Cheney-ian violation of Habeas Corpus – and a convenient way to avoid dealing with the issues of what to do with some hardcore detainees who can’t be tried under normal U.S. law.

Indeed, though the current administration has yet to publicly produce any John Yoo-type interpretations of executive power, they seem to be benefiting from the same sort of thinking that Cheney is being so lambasted for. So why not ride this sucker as far as it’ll take them? Why not find a lawyer (maybe David Addington?) who might be willing to draft a few memos about how poverty in the United States is a threat to national security? Have him cite the Cheney doctrine — that in such times as the President deems necessary, he can take extraordinary steps to protect his country. Have him find a reason for the President to, say, nationalize health care or raise taxes without the consent of Congress. Offer a year’s worth of amnesty to delinquent mortgage payers. Legalize drugs.

The fact is that this is an opprotunity. So drop the Cheney hate — the man (and his lawyers) found a way to streamline the policy-making process, and instead of taking heaps of abuse from the so-called left, he should be receiving flowers and cupcakes. Better yet, should the Obama administration tack in this direction, Cheney just might be remembered as the man who saved the United States.

TAGS:Barack Obama, C.I.A, Dick Cheney, Executive Power, George W. Bush, Leon Panetta

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