Commentary from John W. Dean

Are Congressional Wars Coming? Since Cheney Has Already Said He'll Ignore the Democratic Congress, It Seems Likely

Cheney's Defiant Posture Is Understandable: He Is the Likely Target Of Congressional Oversight
No wonder Dick Cheney worked so hard to prevent the Democrats from winning control of Congress, and is working so hard to push ahead now as if they never had. The DSCC-DCCC report shows that the Democratic Congress has good reason to be interested in Cheney, for he is at the center of the highly controversial activities that the Republican Congress conspicuously ignored.

For example, the report notes the following damning facts: The Republicans refused to investigate the mishandling of the intelligence leading to the war in Iraq. The GOP Congress ignored the fact that Cheney's office was involved in securing a $7 billion no-bid contract for Halliburton, which Cheney headed before becoming VP. The Republicans ignored Cheney's refusal to provide information about his energy task force, which developed policy for the Administration in secret while working with energy company executives. The Republicans refused to investigate the White House's outing of a covert CIA agent (Valerie Plame Wilson) in order to attack her husband, a critic of the Administration. And last, but very much not least, the Republican Congress has ignored the abuses (and torture) of detainees.
In short, Cheney is a key witness with respect to all these questionable - if not illegal -- activities.

Not only is Cheney necessarily a key player, if Congress to is understand what has transpired in the Bush Administration during its first six years, but this fact puts Cheney's philosophy, not to mention his mission as Vice President, directly at odds with Congress' undertaking its Constitutional responsibility.

Cheney is a champion of a strong presidency. He believes - or at least his actions suggest he believes - that a strong president is a secretive president, and a secretive president tells Congress what he wishes to tell them, just as he tells them which laws he will or will not obey, particularly as Commander-in-Chief. With the help of a compliant GOP Congress, which evidenced no institutional pride, Cheney has had no problem killing all oversight efforts during the first six years of the Bush presidency. But now, with Democrats prepared to hold the Bush Administration accountable, Cheney does have problems - and they may be quite serious ones.

Still, Cheney's problems are nothing like the woes that Republicans inflicted on Democratic President Bill Clinton, during the Independent Counsel investigations and, ultimately, the impeachment proceeding. I do not believe that the Democrats will resort to such abuses for partisan purposes. More on the story