The Veep's Office
THE VEEP'S OFFICE....Yesterday I wondered if National Review would take notice of Dick Cheney's laughable theory that the vice president is both a legislative and an executive officer and therefore bound by the rules of neither. My money was on Mark Levin to make some kind of bizarre, pretzel-like defense of Cheney's assertion, but today I was disappointed. Levin can usually be counted on to say something kookily belligerent no matter what the subject, but he decided to lay low on this one:
Rather than arguing that the vice president, as president of the Senate, is exempt from coverage, I would have argued that this is a purely internal executive branch issue. Therefore, who cares what Dick Durbin, Rahm Emanuel or the Democrat front group CREW have to say about it.Levin doesn't quite admit that Cheney's theory is absurd, but he does sensibly suggest that it's not exactly a winning argument. Meanwhile, the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, after offering a desultory defense of Cheney on the grounds that oversight is "a pain in the neck," also decided that discretion was the better part of valor. After Juan Williams pushed back, all Kristol could offer was a defeated shrug.
When you don't even have Mark Levin and Bill Kristol on your side, it's time to give it up. Maybe noted constitutional scholar Ann Coulter will find a way to defend Cheney, but it looks like that's about it.