By Staff
Read The Washington Post's year-in-the-making four-part series on Vice President Dick Cheney. It ought to take your breath away.
Reporters Bart Gellman and Jo Becker try to pry the veil of secrecy off the White House, where Cheney has used his experience as Jerry Ford's chief of staff, secretary of defense and House Republican whip and broad authority granted by President George W. Bush to if not establish his own fourth dimension of the federal government, then to at least bend something as unwieldy as Washington bureaucracy to his will instead of settling for funeral-trotting figurehead.
"What (Cheney and his minions) miss is that in times of war, a prerequisite for success is people having confidence in their leadership. This is the great failure of the administration – a complete and total indifference to public opinion," the Post, which interviewed 200 men and women "who worked for, with or in opposition to Cheney's office," quotes a "former White House ally."
Cheney, 66, of course, declined to be interviewed.
We probably don't know the half of what's stowed in those "man-size Mosler safes" in his office since it's taken six years to get this accounting of moves made after 9/11 in the early days of the war on terror.
He may have repealed gravity by now or become chief justice of the Supreme Court.
Cheney covers his tracks.
And he conceals his role not just from Americans, but from other top Bush advisers.
He pioneered stamping even talking points for reporters with "Treated As Top Secret/SCI," or Sensitive Compartmented Information," as though their disclosure could damage national security.
The names or size of his staff?
None of our business. He generally releases no public calendar and ordered the Secret Service to destroy visitor logs.
A federal office that insisted on auditing his compliance Cheney proposed by abolished.
Bush ultimately makes decisions on war in Iraq, the budget and who sits on the Supreme Court, but the president may not even realize the extent to which Cheney shapes his options.
In one instance the Post cites, Cheney may have been Bush's sounding board for advice the vice president originated himself. He seems accountable to no one, even though Cheney used to counsel that all proposals should be tested against other views and that unvetted decisions lead presidents to costly mistakes.
"The irony with the Cheney crowd pushing the envelope on presidential power is that the president has now ended up with lesser powers than he would have had if they had made less extravagant monarchical claims," notes Bruce Fein, an assistant deputy attorney general under Ronald Reagan.
In great detail, the Post tells how "astonished" Attorney General John Ashcroft was upon learning that the Justice Department was denied a voice in the tribunal process as Cheney took the lead on military commissions to try al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
On Nov. 14, 2001, when Cheney announced to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that terrorists do not "deserve to be treated as prisoners of war," President Bush hadn't yet made that decision and wouldn't for another 10 weeks that Geneva Conventions would not apply to al-Qaeda or Taliban fighters captured on the battlefield.
Donning Harry Potter's invisibility cloak to dodge any public or congressional scrutiny is a great advantage in waging bureaucratic turf war.
Guys like Scooter Libby kneaded the law like pizza dough to make it fit Cheney's positions.
With his private access to the Oval Office, the Secretary of State, the National Security Adviser and Federal Reserve Board chairman count themselves among those Bushwhacked by Cheney going behind their backs. Bush lets Cheney play a role Cheney never allowed guarding Ford's door.
Clearly, Cheney's power derives from a strong will to prevail coupled with meticulous preparation and a chief executive inclined to delegation.
Cheney is said to enjoy the nitty-gritty of economics.
He "reaches down" to second-tier officials better informed on subjects he tackles, knowing his interest will also grab their bosses' attention.
Piercing his secrecy, of course, lets us glance past his Darth Cheney public persona to someone who seems more like a conservative ideologue than evil, "griping privately to confidants about the administration's failure to control spending."
Nixon numbers: A Newsweek poll shows 26 percent of American approve of the job President Bush is doing – lowest since Tricky Dick's 23 percent in 1974.
With 19 months to go, the record is within Bush's grasp.
"Nixonian stonewalling": That's what congressional investigators are calling Bush's refusal to produce White House documents. Congressional panels are investigating whether the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys, including former Cass County prosecutor Margaret Chiara, were carried out for improper political motives.
Pay to plug: School districts start charging employees to offset electricity personal appliances use.
The Detroit Free Press reported June 30 that Grosse Pointe Public Schools gets $25 for a microwave, $30 for a coffee pot, $110 for a space heater and $150 for a large refrigerator to save $35,000 to $45,000. Chippewa Valley Public Schools is considering following suit.
Teachers nationally already spend an average of $500 per year for school supplies, according to Doug Pratt, communications director for the Michigan Education Association.
2.3 percent: Global newspaper sales ROSE last year and have increased 9.48 percent over the last five years, according to the World Association of Newspapers. Only North America declined. Sales increased year-over-year in Asia, Europe, Africa and South America.
And another thing: Newspapers remain the world's second-largest ad medium after television, with more revenue than radio, cinema, outdoor, magazines and the Internet COMBINED.
Most alarming but least surprising news: Fanning Howey crunched the numbers from the unsuccessful May Cassopolis Public Schools $29.5 million bond proposal and found that more than half of registered voters are ages 18 to 49, but only a third of them paid their civic rent by voting.
Thirty percent of parents with children in the district weren't even registered to vote!
Americans lack faith in "big box" parties: A Rasmussen poll shows the number of Republicans has been falling for two years straight to around 30 percent. The number of people identifying themselves as Democrats has fallen to its lowest level in a year and a half, 37 percent. Americans not affiliated with either major party reaches an all-time high of almost 33 percent.
SI's eighth annual "Where are They Now?": Sports Illustrated quits being a golf magazine long enough to catch us up on Milt Wilcox, the 1972-73-74 World Series champions Oakland A's and Dock Ellis.
The Pirates pitcher, who started the 1971 All-Star Game, no-hit San Diego June 12, 1970, while on LSD. But Ellis' scariest moment came in 1973 while trying to pitch sober.
Of course Ellis, 62, became a drug counselor. Pittsburgh, by the way, hasn't had a winning season in 15 years, since Jim Leyland managed there in 1992.
Wilcox, 57, 17-8 for Detroit's 1984 World Series champions, is still with Sparky Anderson – the black Lab star of his carnival act, Ultimate Air Dogs. Wilcox won Game 3 of the Series over the San Diego Padres.
I saw Charlie Finley's A's at Tiger Stadium in 1971, when Vida Blue, 24-8 to win the Cy Young and AL MVP awards, then held out in 1972. Blue works for the Giants today.
Joe Rudi sells real estate in Oregon and is into ham radio in a big way. Catfish Hunter died in 1999. Gene Tenace is a roving batting instructor with the Cardinals. And captain Sal Bando is CEO of a Wisconsin doll company.
The colorful A's won their first title after defeating the Tigers in five games in the ALCS and prevailing over the Big Red Machine of Johnny Bench, Tony Perez and Pete Rose.
Quips, quotes and qulunkers: "I am the balance. Every night I watch the nightly news. It's funded by the pharmaceutical companies. Virtually every ad is a drug ad. They get their say every night on the nightly news through advertising. Everyone has to be a political activist. If we're not politically active, it ceases to be a democracy. It's not a spectator sport. It's a participatory event."