VICE PRESIDENT’S OFFICE NO LONGER
PART OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH

We were shocked to learn that Vice President Cheney and his staff were not following the laws but just making up their own rules as they go along. The National Archives Information Security Oversight Office was created to make sure that classified information in the in the executive branch is protected. For the past three years the vice president’s office has refused to cooperate with the oversight agency. “It’s none of their d----d business what goes on here,” the vice president said.

According to some White House insiders, Mr. Cheney just doesn’t think those people can keep a secret. Congress will come around and put pressure on people, and pretty soon they blab everything. Or they’ll write a book, like that Tenet guy, and try to blame everything on the vice president. Mr. Cheney’s staff is loyal, and they know how to keep their mouths shut. They’ll even lie and go to jail to protect the vice president.

Anyway, the rules of the Information Security Oversight Office do not apply to the vice president. The oversight office was set up to monitor executive branch agencies, and according to Cheney, the vice president’s office is not part of the executive branch. It is its own separate little branch, entitled to keep its own secrets from other branches.

Director of the oversight office, William Leonard, wrote to the attorney general’s office to ask for a ruling on whether or not the laws apply to the vice president. Americans can sleep easy tonight because they know that Alberto Gonzales is on the job.