Lying, Cheating, Hypocritical Bastards

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You've got to love how the media frames an issue:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush's last State of the Union address is expected to be heavy on Iraq and the economy, but he also will say he is entering a congressional fray over earmarking taxpayer dollars, administration officials said.

President Bush delivers his State of the Union address in January 2007.

Bush will announce "unprecedented changes" in the way lawmakers earmark money for special projects that benefit their districts or campaign contributors, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said in an e-mail.

The president plans to sign an executive order Tuesday "directing agencies to ignore any future earmarks included in report language, but not in the legislation," Fratto said.

The order will not be retroactive, he added. Democrats were quick to point out that almost half of the 11,735 earmarks approved in 2008 were GOP-sponsored and White House-endorsed.

"The president will say that if these spending items are worthy, Congress should debate them in the open and hold a public vote," Fratto said. "He will state his commitment to veto any spending bill that does not succeed in cutting earmarks in half from 2008 levels."

The move comes after House Republicans challenged Democrats in a letter Friday to join a bipartisan effort to overhaul earmarks. Republicans are expected to use earmarking as an issue against Democrats in the 2008 elections.

Is this executive order even Constitutional? Doesn't it sound like it interferes with the role of Congress, which is to represent the people by being a large, slow, methodical and deliberative body that appropriates and spends the money only after both houses compromise and agree on legislation? There was a reason why the founders put the power of the purse in the hands of the many rather than the Unitary Executive. They knew there would be a George Bush someday.

Here's how that lede should have been written:

Despite widespread use of earmarks by the Republican-controlled Congress for the majority of his time in office, President Bush will attempt to remain relevant for the remainder of his lame-duck term by attempting to sign legislation to curb the use of earmarks.

It's smart politicking--as the GOP continues to descend into hell, the Republicans want to staunch the flow of earmarks into Democratic districts because that money will help re-elect Democrats. Hey--what was Tom DeLay good for? Using earmarks to batter the Democrats because the money flowed into areas where Republican members of the House could keep their seats. What better way to keep the Dems from increasing their control of Congress than by cutting off the earmarks that will help get some of the Democratic members re-elected in close districts?

Here's where we pray for Democrats in the leadership in Congress to shove this issue back down their throats.

Has Cheney met his match?

Could very well be.

Get your refreshments before the fight starts – it’s gonna be better than anything the Sweet Science has had to offer since Frazier-Ali. It’s Emanuel-Cheney, and this time the “go fuck yourself” will likely be directed at rather than issued from Big Time.

For six years, Cheney bent the 109^th, 108^th and 107^th congresses over the lectern and had his way with them. When Cheney officially severed ties with reality and declared that he is not a member of the executive branch last week, the Democratic congress responded. Specifically, Rahm Emanuel responded. Hoo boy - did he ever respond! Don't call this Democrat spineless, thank you very much.

When Cheney went off the rails last week, Emanuel got that look in his eye my dog used to get when she saw a rabbit in the garden.

First he issued the chart, which was promptly posted by Josh Marshall, yours truly and every left-of-center blogger in between:

Then he commenced with flayin’ the fat man, and shows no signs of letting up. Remember, this is a guy who once mailed a pollster a dead fish, and who is a pro at Chicago-style kick-‘em-in-the-nuts and leave ‘em writhing on the floor bloodsport politics.

Cheney only thinks he knows how to be a motherfucker. Rahm Emanuel knows the fine art of sliding a shiv between the ribs of an opponent with a smile.

On Wednesday, he is introducing an amendment to strike the funding for the vice-presidents operating budget from the executive branch appropriations bill.

Emanuel's proposed amendment would withhold the $4.4 million for Cheney's office until the vice president admits he's in the executive branch or the Government Accountability Office determines which branch Cheney serves in.

The goal is not to cut off the money, but to force a recognition that Cheney is in the executive branch and subject to the order on secrecy.

``The vice president has a choice to make,'' Emanuel said. ``If he believes his legal case, his office has no business being funded as part of the executive branch. However, if he demands executive-branch funding, he cannot ignore executive branch rules.''

The showdown is coming tomorrow. Will Cheney snap and lose it? Rahm is a verbal streetfighter – will he push Big Time's buttons to the point of meltdown? An authoritarian control freak is pretty easy to get a disproportionate response from. He is already pissed off over having his authority challenged in the first damned place.

Emanuel knows his enemy, and frankly, I await the goading with bated breath. (C’mon Dick – I'm rootin' for ya - don’t disappoint – take the bait – you know you want to – open that fetid maw and let fly!!!) After all what does he have to lose? A couple of points off his Agnew-esque approval rating?

I have been waiting for a political fistfight since Webb didn’t deck aWol at tht reception last winter. I have long hoped that former boxer Harry Reid would just sucker-punch Mitch McConnell live on C-Span – and that is still a favorite fantasy – but I will settle for a rhetorical set-to between Emanuel and Cheney, at least for now. When it comes down to a bare-knuckled political brawl, always take the street-smart Jew from Chicago who knows from hurling invective most colorfully over the pudgy prick with the heart condition.

Does this mean we can forget about that “Unitary Executive” nonsense they’ve been peddling?

From the “you can’t have it both ways” chronicles, we have this dandy little paradox – the president claims the right to do as he damn well pleases because he is a "Unitary Executive" in a time of war…and then yesterday, he turns around and claims he is not a member of the Executive Branch?

Good thing surrealism is my cup of fur. Otherwise I might set my locks alight.

I just can’t square how an executive order, signed by the executive, covering all the executive agencies somehow doesn’t apply to the executive and vice-executive. WTF???

We are talking about vital National Security information, and frankly, these weasels have a lousy record of protecting and safeguarding that information (Scooter “Treason” Libby, anyone?) In fact, they have a track record of cherry-picking intelligence and they used their phony intel to start an illegal war that has displaced 4 million Iraqi’s, hastened or directly caused the death of up to a million more, indebted the American treasury to the Chines to the tune of 4 trillion dollars, killed over 3500 American GI’s and wounded ~30,000 more.

That these feckless fools would even try to peddle this bullshit reasoning makes me livid. Who the fuck do they even think they are?

This is not a monarchy. We as a nation eschewed that notion in 1776. And our founding fathers lie spinning in their graves.

From the LA Times:

"We don't dispute that the ISOO has a different opinion. But let's be very clear: This executive order was issued by the president, and he knows what his intentions were," Fratto said. "He is in compliance with his executive order." (Bloggers aside: Where is the signing statement that clarifies the resident’s intent?)

Fratto conceded that the lengthy directive, technically an amendment to an existing executive order, did not specifically exempt the president's or vice president's offices. Instead, it refers to "agencies" as being subject to the requirements, which Fratto said did not include the two executive offices. "It does take a little bit of inference," Fratto said.

Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' government secrecy project, disputed the White House explanation of the executive order.

He noted that the order defines "agency" as any executive agency, military department and "any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information" — which, he said, includes Bush's and Cheney's offices.

Frankly, I don’t trust these ideologues, morons and warmongers with information even with oversight. And the experts on national security are as non-plussed as I am about the White House assertion that the executive branch is exempt from executive oversight that has to be inferred from an executive order.

[These claims of exemption] fit what they saw as a pattern in the administration of avoiding accountability, even on matters of national security.

"If the president and the vice president don't take their own rules seriously, who else should?" said Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, a nongovernmental research institute at George Washington University in Washington that lobbies for open government.

"If they get a blank check, it's a recipe for disaster. I can't think of a quicker way to break down the credibility of the entire security-classification system."

Blanton noted that the White House had acknowledged that a substantial number of in-house e-mails had disappeared in recent years, at a time when investigators wanted to review them for possible evidence of inappropriate leaks of classified information.

"If there are all these great safeguards in place, then where are the e-mails?" Blanton asked.

These offenses are deadly serious folks. They undermine the Social Contract, practically to the point of nullification.

Bush and Cheney are two men with a handful of craven minions doing their bidding. We are a nation of 300 million, and we are represented by 535 Senators and Representatives, whose job it is to protect our interests and the Social Contract.

If they take this latest exhibit of mendacity lying down – we need 535 new Representatives and Senators.