Sort this interesting tidbit on TPMmuckraker:
Now, here's the rub. If President Bush and Vice President Cheney clearly fall outside the scope of the executive order, as Perino said yesterday, why does ISOO, the agency directed under the order to ensure complaince, insist on inspecting them? The order, known as Executive Order 13292, gives the ISOO the authority "to conduct on-site reviews of each agency's program established under this order." Neither the president nor the vice president run any agency. But here's how EO 13292 defines "agency":
"Agency" means any "Executive agency," as defined in 5 U.S.C. 105; any "Military department" as defined in 5 U.S.C. 102; and any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information.
That's President Bush's language: he amended the executive order on March 25, 2003. (Basically, he gave the vice president power to automatically declassify information; it became an issue in the Valerie Plame leak case.) He could have easily cleared up any confusion about ISOO's ability to investigate his own office with a few uses of the word "exempt," but he didn't -- and now he's insisting that the order contains an implicit exemption.
2 comments:
Cheney really is the president, he told the puppet to let him declassify etc. so he can fully act as president behind the puppet.
Yes President Cheney is in full charge of the White House. Now Bush is really the White House Wal Mart Greeter. He gets his information from the newspaper, President Cheney doesn't allow the lower staffer and drunk like Bush to know important matters.
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