Since the government relies on tax-payer funds to create, publish and manage websites that provide supposedly factual information for teacher's and parents with which to teach their children about the structure of our government, I thought perhaps firing off an email to the webmaster for Ben's Guide, a government website that purports this as it's mission might be a good first step to clarifying this important issue about Cheney's assertion his office "is not an entity within the Executive Branch :
Ben's Guide to U.S. Government for Kids is brought to the World Wide Web as a service of the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). Ben's Guide serves as the educational component of GPO Access, GPO's service to provide the official online version of legislative and regulatory information.
This site provides learning tools for K-12 students, parents, and teachers. These resources will teach how our government works, the use of the primary source materials of GPO Access, and how one can use GPO Access to carry out their civic responsibilities. And, just as GPO Access provides locator services to U.S. Government sites, Ben's Guide provides a similar service to U.S. Government Web sites developed for kids.
Just so you know, this is what's displayed at the Ben's Guide page for the Executive Branch:
Now--perhaps my eyes are misleading me but I'm pretty sure I see a header which reads "Executive Branch" followed by the various offices of:
1 President: Leader of the country and commands the military.
2 Vice President: President of the Senate and becomes President if the President can no longer do the job.
3 Departments: Department heads advise the President on issues and help carry out policies.
4 Independent Agencies: Help carry out policy or provide special services.
Lest anybody needs to clarify anything more, this is a US Government webpage, indicated by the .gov at the end of the URL (http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/government/national/executive.html)
So if Dick Cheney is asserting that his office is not an entity contained within the Executive Branch, then either this government website directed to provide educational tools, resources, and information for the education of American children and immigrants seeking to naturalize is wrong...
...or Dick Cheney is wrong.
I'd like to find out and so I've written a letter to the webmaster of Ben's Guide.
Hi. I'm a concerned parent who would like to be able to rely on my own government's sponsored pages on the structure of the US government, specifically the Executive Branch, to teach my children about how our system of democracy works.
Unfortunately, I just finished reading an article on Chairman Henry A Waxman's government website of Oversight and Government Reform which indicated that Vice President Dick Cheney has asserted that the Office of Vice President "is not an entity within the executive branch."
The Oversight Committee has learned that over the objections of the National Archives, Vice President Cheney exempted his office from the presidential order that establishes government-wide procedures for safeguarding classified national security information. The Vice President asserts that his office is not an "entity within the executive branch."
As described in a letter from Chairman Waxman to the Vice President, the National Archives protested the Vice President's position in letters written in June 2006 and August 2006. When these letters were ignored, the National Archives wrote to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in January 2007 to seek a resolution of the impasse. The Vice President's staff responded by seeking to abolish the agency within the Archives that is responsible for implementing the President's executive order.
In his letter to the Vice President, Chairman Waxman writes: "I question both the legality and wisdom of your actions. ... [I]t would appear particularly irresponsible to give an office with your history of security breaches an exemption from the safeguards that apply to all other executive branch officials."
Seeing as Ben's Guide serves as a government resource for children to learn about the various branches of government that make up our democracy, I would trust that the information be not only current and up to date, but also based on fact and this new report clearly calls into question the facts on whether or not the OVP is indeed, an entity contained within the Executive Branch.
For the sake of my children's education, as well as the education of millions of children all over this nation, I hope someone here would be able to clear up this little misunderstanding.
Thank you,
--xxxxx
Feel free to ask Ben yourself.
askben@gpo.gov.