Mister Non-Executive, meet Mister 26 Percent
With Bush polling worse than Jimmy Carter now, having tumbled to 26% approval, he is now just 3% above Nixon’s low point in the final 8 months of his presidency. Not only is that the second lowest rating in the last 35 years - as Newsweek says - but it is likely either the second or third lowest rating since FDR was first elected 75 years ago.
And his VP has rated himself lower still.
I believe Cheney’s correct that he’s no longer a part of the executive branch. In support of that position, I maintain that we are thus under no obligation to pay his salary or his perks or to grant him a say in any policy or legislative development.
While the Constitution offers only one clear path to dump a sitting executive - impeachment - it does not preclude other paths when an elected officer has seceded from the constitutional government by his own decree.
That course is, after all, the only check we have on his unbalanced-ness. Congressional leaders should simply accept his signing statement as a resignation, and ask Bush to nominate a new one. With the stipulation that if he fails to nominate another, the second in line for presidential succession will move to the fore, so Nancy Pelosi will be president if Bush fails to finish his term.
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Cheney’s correct that he’s no longer a part of the executive branch
Doesn’t that also imply that he and all his staff and all his papers can be hauled before Congress and he can’t claim executive privilege? I mean, if he’s not part of the Executive Branch….
June 23rd, 2007 at 12:04 pm
[…] Since the story broke that Cheney claimed his office was not part of the executive branch, I’ve said in numerous blog comments, then in a post here, that Congress should simply refuse to pay him for his invisible effforts in the invisible branch of government he’s assigned himself to. Now the Dem leadership has crafted legislation to defund his office! […]