"Power Hungry" Doesn't Begin to Cover it

-What do you wanna do today, Dick?
-The same thing we do every day, Bushy. Try to take over the world!
-Narf!

The Boston Globe has an excellent article up detailing Dick Cheney's ongoing Executive power grab that's been going on since the Nixon years.

The Iran-contra scandal was not the first time the future vice president articulated a philosophy of unfettered executive power -- nor would it be the last. The Constitution empowers Congress to pass laws regulating the executive branch, but over the course of his career, Cheney came to believe that the modern world is too dangerous and complex for a president's hands to be tied. He embraced a belief that presidents have vast "inherent" powers, not spelled out in the Constitution, that allow them to defy Congress.

Cheney bypassed acts of Congress as defense secretary in the first Bush administration. And his office has been the driving force behind the current administration's hoarding of secrets, its efforts to impose greater political control over career officials, and its defiance of a law requiring the government to obtain warrants when wiretapping Americans. Cheney's staff has also been behind President Bush's record number of signing statements asserting his right to disregard laws.

[...]

Peter Shane, an Ohio State University law professor, predicted that Cheney's long career of consistently pushing against restrictions on presidential power is likely to culminate in a series of uncompromising battles with Congress.

"Cheney has made this a matter of principle," Shane said. "For that reason, you are likely to hear the words 'executive privilege' over and over again during the next two years."

Indeed; he's got his little dictatorship moving along nicely, and he's not about to give that up without a fight. Give it a look.

Of course, the same question always pops in my head when I read something like this: "Where the hell was this article in 2004? Hell, in 2000?"

(They're Pinky and the Cross-post...)