Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday vigorously defended a secret program that examines banking records of Americans and others in a vast international database, and harshly criticized the news media for disclosing an operation he said was legal and "absolutely essential" to fighting terrorism.Those of you under the age of thirty might not remember another Vice President whose mission it was to attack the press for its coverage of distrust and unrest, and basically made it his mission to set the tone for the administration's view of how it wielded power. Spiro Agnew, the first vice president in the Nixon administration was the designated hitman. He made speech after speech attacking the liberals, the press, hippies, the counterculture; anything that did not comport to the idea of the mythic "Silent Majority" of Americans who hated the idea that someone out there could be having a good time and not like Richard Nixon. It could be said that Mr. Agnew's attacks were the beginning of our modern-day political dialogue of slash and burn that has dominated the arena since the 1970's. Certainly he didn't start it, but he did bring it back. (It should also be noted that Mr. Agnew resigned in disgrace in 1973 after pleading no contest to bribery. Thus began the renewed tradition of VP's with questionable business practices.)
"What I find most disturbing about these stories is the fact that some of the news media take it upon themselves to disclose vital national security programs, thereby making it more difficult for us to prevent future attacks against the American people," Mr. Cheney said, in impromptu remarks at a fund-raising luncheon for a Republican Congressional candidate in Chicago. "That offends me."
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...Mr. Cheney was emphatic on Friday in arguing the program is necessary, and predicted that the Bush administration might be criticized over it in much the same way that critics have assailed the National Security Agency eavesdropping, which has been done without warrants.
"The fact of the matter is that these are good, solid, sound programs," the vice president said at the fund-raiser in Chicago for David McSweeney, a Republican who is running against Representative Melissa Bean, a freshman Democrat.
"They are conducted in accordance with the laws of the land," Mr. Cheney continued, adding, "They're carried out in a manner that is fully consistent with the constitutional authority of the president of the United States. They are absolutely essential in terms of protecting us against attacks."
Note that Mr. Cheney says that they are doing everything within the law...as they see it. It appears that the administration didn't consult Congress or the courts in going ahead with the program. Why?
Two reasons come to mind. First is that the White House thinks that if they had consulted anyone outside of the West Wing, they would have gotten their ears pinned back by both the lawmakers and the courts over privacy concerns, as well they should. They're also freaky about leaks -- unless, of course, they serve their own purposes -- and they were sure that if they told the Congress, some namby-pamby weak sister who thinks the Constitution and the Fourth Amendment are carved in stone would have blabbed to the New York Times.
The second reason is that the White House believed that they didn't have to consult with anybody. So far they've gotten by without doing it, so why should this be any different? The idea of balance of power to this administration is "We're going to do it and you're going to like it. So there."
By the way, not to brag, but did I call it or what?
You can expect a huge outcry from the right wing that once again the New York Times has revealed state secrets and are treasonable evil-doers by telling the terrorists that we are watching international banking transactions.I'm just imagining what Michelle Malkin or the rest of the right-wing would be saying if it was revealed that the Clinton administration did something like this to hide their efforts to track down the bombers at Oklahoma City. Oh wait...
