Dick Cheney's Vice-presidency has been one of the strangest things in the history of our Gov't.
The received wisdom is that it's a dead-end job. The mission of the VP is to show the flag, go places the Pres is too busy to (or bored) to deal with.
The VP isn't allowed to have an opinion of his own, and is usually selected in the hope that his home state will vote for him come the election.
But Cheney has set up a sort of shadow White House, parallel structures for collecting intel, driving issues of policy, and; so it seems, at critical junctures, actually making the call on things which had to be decided now, even though Bush has never been incapacitated.
So it's interestig to know that his office falls, so his staff asserts, completely outside the bounds of the Constitution.
His office told the
House Oversight Committee that his office is not an “entity within the executive branch.”
Wow.
Back when Mrs. Pagniatta made me copy out the US Constitution, in the seventh grade, I must have missed the Article which explained that part, because I thought it was covered
Article II But that explains all of
these things the Office of the Vice President has refused to do.
See, his office isn't part of the Executive, and since it's not part of the Legislative or Judicial, it's just not covered. He can do anything he wants.
Unless, of course, he's just lying to cover his ass.