Yesterday, Dan Froomkin noticed something I wrote about on Thursday, that "Cheney's office was complying in 2001 and 2002 but decided to stop doing so in 2003. Smells like he didn't like doing it in those first two years, had David Addington et al working overtime to come up with some interpretation voiding this need to be accountable, and lo and behold in 2003 they apparently came up with some deranged view that they hoisted and have been hoisting ever since -- until we finally got a congress that would fight back."

Froomkin argues:

On March 25, 2003, just days after ordering U.S. troops into Iraq, Bush signed an executive order amending Executive Order 12958, which President Clinton had signed in 1995, and which laid out a host of rules about the classification and declassification of secret information.

Bush did not change the requirement that federal agencies report at least once a year on their implementation of those policies. Nor did he change the definition of who was covered by the reporting requirements. That continued to include any "entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information."

But Bush did make one major change: Giving the vice president all the same classification powers as the president. Clinton's order had assigned those powers only to the president, agency heads and their specifically designated subordinates. Bush's order added one more party: The vice president. Or, in the precise and possibly telling words of the order: "[I]n the performance of executive duties, the Vice President."

We've known for quite some time that this VP is by far the most powerful in history, and with this bit of news it quickly becomes evident how this was made possible: Bush has made him equal to himself, changing the equation to "VP = President". Just more pissing on our Constitution by the gang that oh-so favors strict constructionism. An absolute joke.

The mafia is often used as an appropriate analogy for this administration and it's perfectly conceivable that Bush decided in 2003 to officially designate Cheney as his henchman, the go-to guy for all needed dirty work, his Luca Brasi.

This mob must go!