I think there is a most impolite word that could be applied to Cheney's assertion. Otherwise, we can just assume it is more of his same effort to turn the presidency into a dictatorship. He is like a kid standing in defiance of authority saying, "Catch me if you can, nyah, nyah." Smirking as he sees no one can stop him. Sadly, he has won. We see the results of his thinking and manipulation in all aspects of our nation. Aren't we all pleased with all he has done for us.
Challenging Cheney
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No explanation was offered?
No. It was strike this, strike that. Anyplace you saw the words, "the director of ISOO" or "ISOO" it was struck.
What was your reaction?
I was disappointed that rather than engage on the substance of an issue, some people would resort to that…
What rules were they saying didn't apply to them?
The ones that tell you how you mark [classified documents], how you declassify, how you safeguard them, how you store…
Ultimately, the White House said the president never intended that the vice president would have to comply. This had to have been frustrating -to have been publicly thwarted for doing what you saw as your job?
Well, you know, that I've had 34 years of frustration. That's life in the big city. I also accept that I'm not always right….But this was a big thing as far as I was concerned.
A number of people have noted that the vice president's office stopped reporting to you and complying with ISOO in the fall of 2003 when the whole Valerie Plame case blew up. Do you think there was a connection?
I don't have any insight. I was held at arms length [from that.] But some of the things based on what I've read [have] given me cause for concern. A number of prosecution exhibits [in the Plame-related perjury trial of I. Scooter Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff] were annotated, 'handle as SCI.' SCI is Sensitive Compartmentalized Information, the most sensitive classified information there is. As I recall, [one of them] was [the vice president and his staff] were coming back from Norfolk where they had attended a ship commissioning and they were conferring on the plane about coming up with a [media] response plan [to the allegations of Plame's husband, Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson.] That was one of the exhibits marked, 'handle as SCI.'
These were internal communications about what to say to the press?
Let me give you some the irony of that. Part of the National Archives is the presidential libraries….So we're going to have documents [at the libraries] with the most sensitive markings on it that isn't even classified. If I were going to do a review [of OVP], that would be one of the questions I would want to ask: What is this practice? And how widespread is it? And what is the rationale? How do we assure that people don't get this mixed up with real secrets?
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