Jake Bernstein in the GUARDIAN ("Comment is Free" page):... What most in the mainstream media in the United States have missed is that this debate is not really about torture; it's about something much dearer to Cheney's heart: executive power. Cheney and Rumsfeld have been a tandem team for five decades, starting with President Richard Nixon. Their first taste of real power came in the ill-fated administration of Gerald R. Ford, who assumed the presidency after Nixon resigned. Ford tapped Rumsfeld as his chief of staff. Rumsfeld in turn named the then-33-year-old Dick Cheney as his deputy. Cheney went on to succeed Rumsfeld and become the youngest chief of staff in the history of the country. Upon arriving at the White House, Cheney and Rumsfeld were almost immediately swept into an epic battle between a resurgent Congress and a beleaguered administration. After Ford pardoned Nixon in 1974, voters expressed their disgust that November by overwhelmingly voting a Democratic majority into Congress. Republicans lost more than 40 seats, ushering in a historic reform Congress that changed the balance of power in Washington. From access to public information to environmental regulations, the Democrats made their mark. In particular they investigated intelligence abuses, including allegations of illegal wiretapping and government-sponsored assassinations of foreign leaders. "Congressional action on intelligence was like opening the door and a tsunami came through every day," remembers Jack Marsh, a counselor to Ford on intelligence during those years. Cheney has spent the past 30 years trying to restore the Nixon imperial presidency that the reform congresses from the 1970s dismantled. One notable example is the War Powers Resolution, passed in 1973, which restricted the president's ability to send U.S. troops into combat without congressional approval. Since leaving the Ford administration, Cheney has advised two Bush presidents that they didn't need the consent of Congress to attack Iraq, arguing instead that war-making is the sole prerogative of the commander in chief. In much the same way, Cheney thinks it is the right of the president to order torture if he believes it's necessary. ... -- Jim Devine / "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
