Fourthbranch Updates

(bumped because of the kind link by the great Meteor Blades. Welcome Kossacks!)

The third installment of the Washington Post's "Angler" series about Fourthbranch Cheney is a little milder than the first two, because the topic is the domestic and economic agenda, and other than being a standard-issue supply-sider I truly don't think he cares much about that, other than to ensure that his rich cronies get their not-so-fair share. On those points he does put the hammer down:

Air Force Two touched down at the Greenbrier Valley Airport in West Virginia on Feb. 6, 2003, carrying Vice President Cheney to the annual retreat of Republican House and Senate leaders. He had come to sell them on the economic centerpiece of President Bush's first term: a $674 billion tax cut [...]

The president had accepted Cheney's diagnosis that the sluggish economy needed a jolt, overruling senior economic advisers who forecast dangerous budget deficits. But Bush rejected one of Cheney's remedies: deep reductions in the capital gains tax on investments.

The vice president "was just hot on that," said Cesar Conda, then Cheney's domestic policy adviser. "It goes to show you: He wins and he loses, and he lost on that one."

Not for long.

His allies in the House ended up inserting the capital gains tax cut, which really only impacts the wealthy, into the bill, at the expense of one of Bush's priorities. You tell me who's more powerful.

On other elements of domestic policy, like NCLB or the prescription drug benefit, Fourthbranch DIDN'T get what he wanted, at least not according to the article. It plays out more like a typical scenario, with the Vice President one among several powerful interests pushing their agendas. Except that the entire budget gets routed through him before it goes out.

In Bush, Cheney found the perfect partner. The president's willingness to delegate left plenty of room for his more detail-oriented vice president.

"My impression is that the president thinks that the Reagan style of leadership is best -- guiding the ship of state from high up on the mast," said former White House lawyer Bradford A. Berenson. "It seems to me that the vice president is more willing to get down in the wheelhouse below the decks."

The vice president chairs a budget review board, a panel the Bush administration created to set spending priorities and serve as arbiter when Cabinet members appeal decisions by White House budget officials. The White House has portrayed the board as a device to keep Bush from wasting time on petty disagreements, but previous administrations have seldom seen Cabinet-level disputes in that light. Cheney's leadership of the panel gives him direct and indirect power over the federal budget -- and over those who must live within it.

This is another element of why Fourthbranch seems to win all these internecine battles. He selected a lot of the Cabinet and top officials, so he knows how to countermand them and roll them. In addition, he appears to hold their purse strings, and can cut them at any moment. If you depend on the Vice President for your budget money, it's even less likely that you would cross him. That's why you end up with meek milquetoast advisers like this:

When Edward P. Lazear, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, broached the idea of limiting the popular mortgage tax deduction, he said he quickly dropped it after Cheney told him it would never fly with Congress. "He's a big timesaver for us in that he takes off the table a lot of things he knows aren't going to go anywhere," Lazear said.

Lazear, who is otherwise known as a fierce advocate for his views, said that he may argue a point with Cheney "for 10 minutes or so" but that in the end he is always convinced. "I can't think of a time when I have thought I was right and the vice president was wrong."

That's crazy. It's almost like Fourthbranch is turning Mr. Hydes back into Dr. Jekylls. He's not a "big timesaver," he's a walking veto pen.

In other Fourthbranch news, Rahm Emanuel appears serious about bringing an amendment to the floor to cut off funding for Cheney's executive office, estimated at $4.75 million. As long as he's not in the executive branch, he shouldn't be funded through it. Here's Emanuel discussing the plan on Hardball.

Either Wednesday or Thursday my amendment will be on the floor, because the funding for the executive branch is on the floor. And I’ll strike the money for the Vice President’s Office. He can live off the Senate presidency budget that funds him up here. And that’s fine. But if he’s going to be funded in the executive branch, he complies with the rules that apply to everybody. He is not above the rules of the executive branch.

I do have to hand it to Hardball, they led with Fourthbranch yesterday, and they spent most of the first 40 minutes on him as well.

Emanuel loves this issue because there's no political downside into going after Mr. 13%. However, when asked the inevitable "What happens when Cheney doesn't agree and just does what he wants," a legitimate question since that's what he's been doing for the last six years, Emanuel won't go near impeachment and stammers and says "he will be held accountable" without explaining how. It was ultimately a soft-as-tissue-paper performance.

Meanwhile, Dana Perino is in way over her head trying to explain the whole "I'm sometimes executive, sometimes legislative, so really I'm neither!" construction:

The explanatory task fell to White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, whose skin reddened around her neck and collar as she pleaded ignorance during the daily briefing: "I'm not a legal scholar. . . . I'm not opining on his argument that his office is making. . . . I don't know why he made the arguments that he did."

"It's a little surreal," remarked Keith Koffler of Congress Daily.

"You're telling me," Perino agreed.

"You can't give an opinion about whether the vice president is part of the executive branch or not?" Koffler pressed. "It's a little bit like somebody saying, 'I don't know if this is my wife or not.' "

Turns out that Perino did manage to lie about Fourthbranch's compliance with other rules regarding classified material. The White House has been ignoring security breaches and blocking security officers from inspecting the West Wing.

And finally, Sally Quinn, head of the DC cocktail circuit, writes that Republican wags want to dump Cheney, but that means almost nothing. It ends up being a paid political announcement for Fred Thompson (that's who Quinn sees as a replacement) and little more. This is the Washington establishment trying to give their guy a push forward. Remember when they all got their backs up and claimed that Clinton "trashed the place, and it's not his place?" Well, Fourthbranch REALLY trashed the joint. Did a Led Zeppelin on it. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it. In fact, you enabled it.

UPDATE: Marcy Wheeler beat me to this. Yes, Sally Quinn is pushing to replace Fourthbranch with that nice independent Mr. Thompson, when his top foreign policy advisor is Liz Cheney. Na ga happen. Also, Fred ain't that independent:

Thompson, who likes to cast himself as a political outsider, earned more than $1 million lobbying the federal government for more than 20 years. He lobbied for a savings-and-loan deregulation bill that helped hasten the industry's collapse and a failed nuclear energy project that cost taxpayers more than a billion dollars.

He also was a lobbyist for deposed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was widely criticized for endorsing "necklacing," the gruesome practice of execution where gasoline-soaked tires are thrown over a person's neck and set ablaze.

In September 1991, Aristide said: "The burning tire, what a beautiful tool! ... It smells good. And wherever you go, you want to smell it." (This is a slander of Aristide without much of a factual basis, so I'm disassociating from it)

Sounds like he'd fit in at OVP just fine.