Balkinization  

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Who's the Decider? (Part 427)

Marty Lederman

Larry King: Did you dispatch the White House Chief of Staff and the Counsel to the President to the Attorney General's hospital room to try to get him to sign off on the NSA surveillance program?

Dick Cheney: "I don't recall that I gave instructions to that effect."

* * * *

What's interesting is that Cheney pretended to wrack his brain to recall whether he gave the fateful "instructions." As if that might actually have happened -- as if there would be nothing out of the ordinary if the Vice President had "instructed" the President's two closest advisors to try to squeeze a cabinet official.

Any other Vice President in the history of the Republic would have responded in a way that revealed how absurd the question was (i.e., how absurd it should be), to wit:
"I don't give instructions to those persons. They work for the President, not for me. Indeed, when they do act, they act as agents of the President. I can make recommendations, of course. But that's really beside the point, because ultimately it's the President's call whether to send his two closest advisers to bring pressure to bear on a cabinet official."

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