Bush's Ball and Cheney: I've got a secret

25 Jun 2007 // Most leaders like to leave their mark on history, but for Vice President Cheney the rule appears to be no fingerprints on any sensitive national security information, prompting watchdog groups and congressional oversight committeemen to ponder, What is he trying to hide?

Cheney is refusing to cooperate with the National Archives and Records Administration, the government outfit that keeps on file all the national security information that passes down from administration-to-administration. Yet the White House is defending the man who, according to polls, is as popular as a skunk at a picnic.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino claims Cheney is exempt from an executive order signed by President Bush that requires government agencies to cooperate with the archives. "He’s not exempt from following the laws of the United States," Perino said. "He’s exempt just from this reporting requirement in this particular executive order."

Cheney refused to allow the archives to look at information during the probe into the cover-up of who outed CIA spy Valerie Plame. In the end, Cheney’s top aide, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was the only person charged and convicted. Libby is set to report to federal prison in a few short weeks. Cheney, de facto leader of FOLLY – Friends of Lewis Libby – is now begging President Bush to give Scooter a pardon.

"The Vice President is pretending he isn’t part of the executive branch, and the White House is pretending that the rules for protecting classified information are being followed," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

"The only oversight of Dick Cheney is Dick Cheney," said Naomi Seligman, deputy director of the lefty legal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.