TBT: The Brutal Truth

Veep Fudd Pulls A Hitler

No, I'm Not Making This Up!

Vice President Dick Cheney says he has the power to declassify government secrets, raising the possibility that he authorized his former chief of staff to pass along sensitive prewar data on Iraq to reporters.

Cheney coupled his statement in a TV interview Wednesday with an endorsement of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, his ex-aide. Libby is under indictment on charges of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI about disclosing the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.

The exective order Veep Fudd talks about is E.O 13292 which grants both the President and Vice-President amended powers on how they can classify information. But that's not what Cheney claimed in the interview with Brit Hume -- that these powers grant him the power to declassify information. Of course, the NRO's rightwing screwball supreme Byron York carries Cheney's elephant gun in his typical disengenous fashion:

At the time, Bush's order received very little coverage in the press. What mention there was focused on the order's provisions making it easier for the government to keep classified documents under wraps. But as Cheney pointed out Wednesday, the Bush order also contained a number of provisions which significantly increased the vice president's power ...

But Executive Order 13292 is real evidence of real power in the vice president's office. Since the beginning of the administration, Dick Cheney has favored measures allowing the executive branch to keep more things secret. And in March of 2003, the president gave him the authority to do it.

Here's where the disengenous part comes in: throughout York's article, he makes it clear twice that Cheney does indeed have the power to keep information secret and I've emphesized those portions. However, not once does York cite a refference within E.O 13292 that says Cheney has the power to declassify or otherwise blow the lid off of secret information and that is power that Cheney claimed to have in the Hume interview. Not to be outdone, Kyra Phillips just a few moments ago on CNN with Bob Barr done the exact same thing -- recited the same portions York does and then suddenly concludes "it appears Cheney is right" and Bob Barr had to set her straight. Jesus fucking Christ, can't Phillips and York understand plain English?!?

It's clear now that, through this executive order, Veep Cheney is trying to justify two criminal actions. First, that the blasting of his crony in the face with birdshot completely under the influence of alcohol was a matter of national security and thus he had the power to keep it secret from the American public for 24 hours. But the media and left blogistan has allready shot this full of holes, finding inconstancies, inaccuracies, and outright fucking lies from the Hume interview itself and if the media or Congress ever wants to uncover even more of these lies, they can find better eyewitnesses within Cheney's own Secret Service detail than lying-out-her-ass ranch owner and Bush/Cheney crony Katharine Armstrong.

The second is the idea the executive order gives him power to declassify secret information to whatever fancies him under the false rubric "national security". What secret information could jeopardize national security in Cheney's eyes to the point where he had to blow the whistle on government secrets? Simple: the secret of Valerie Plame's covert status as a CIA NOC. This isn't just an admittance from Cheney -- it's an open and direct dare to the American people to do something about it.

I hereby donate six slugs of indictment-shot for the boomstick of Yosemite Fitzpatrick so that he can remind Veep Fudd via a good peppering that our American republic is not spelled W-E-I-M-A-R.

posted by Sizemore at 4:40 PM

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