Editorial: Cheney shows disdain for federal accountability

12 Jun 2007 // The Associated Press reported that Vice President Cheney's office ordered the Secret Service last September to destroy all records of visitors to the official vice presidential mansion right after The Washington Post sued for access to the logs. That move was made in secret, naturally. It came out only because of another lawsuit, filed by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, seeking the names of conservative religious figures who visited the vice president's residence

This disdain for accountability is distressing, but not surprising. Cheney has had it on display from his first days in office, when he refused to name the energy-industry executives who met with him behind closed doors to draft an energy policy.

In a similar way, Cheney seems unconcerned about little things like checks and balances and traditional American notions of judicial process. At one point, he gave himself the power to selectively declassify documents and selectively leak them to reporters. In a recent commencement address, he declaimed against prisoners who had the gall to demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the U.S. Constitution.