What is Cheney doing to prevent a future president from restoring the pre-Bush separation of powers?
Even presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has promised to take a more restrained approach to the powers of the presidency. But are we really to believe that Cheney is sitting around idly, waiting for everything he has done to be undone? That’s just not the Cheney way. Cheney is notoriously secretive, but reporters should be doing everything possible to find out who he and his people are talking to, where they’re going, and what they’re saying in public. Just yesterday, in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Cheney indicated that he doesn’t intend to let a future administration dismantle all his good work. Asked what he considered the most important achievement of the past seven years, he replied; “I would point to what we’ve done with respect to the global war on terror… [I]t is not an accident that it’s been now nearly seven years since 9/11 and we haven’t been hit again.” And he spoke of how important is it that “we do whatever’s necessary to defend the Ame
