I don't get over to the Nation journal often enough but yesterday as I popped over, I found an interesting articlenear the bottom of the page about how the 4th Branch could hold a key position in determining who is the next President. At first, as I read the article, it was merely interesting to me, something I hadn't known, or actually, thought about before. Take a hop down below and think about 'stuff'...
The article goes over Cheney's abuses and his insane claims of being a force unto himself, outside law and Constitution, as well as the history of the Vice Presidency, how it came about, why it came about, how the Framers came up with a "justification" for the VPs salary by assigning him the duty of presiding over the senate to cast tie-breaking votes, and the hidden danger given the nature of Cheney. One danger in particular, coming up in 2008, is that Cheney will preside over the counting of electoral votes after the elections. Think about that for moment. The article goes over a bit of history I didn't know about: how Jefferson, as VP, engineered his own election to the presidency in precisely that role - counting electoral votes in a contested election with a great many voting "irregularities".
... Wearing his Senate cap, the Vice President would also conduct the presidential electoral vote count.
All these neat fixes unraveled quickly with the 1800 elections. This ended with the sitting Vice President, Thomas Jefferson, presiding over the deadlocked Electoral College with substantial voting irregularities - and then counting himself into the presidency. As Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman and co-author David Fontana tell the tale, Jefferson brazenly took it upon himself to adjudicate a "blatant" irregularity with Georgia's votes. With a potential independent run by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg raising the possibility of all kinds of Electoral College deal-making in 2008, the prospect of Cheney at the lectern tallying ballots should cause some trepidation.
Hmpf. It sure causes me some "trepidation" to say the least. Consider the continued vote/vote "fraud" nonsense underway by various GOPers around the country. Consider Gonzales still making that a priority of his totally untrustworthy Justice Department, and even if Bloomberg doesn't run, there is still plenty of room for "blatant" irregularities with the votes all over the country...and the man that comes to the rescue to make sense of the irregularities will be none other than Darth Cheney himself! Imagine the possibilities.
This idea alone should be enough to spark the fire of impeachment against Cheney. No, a theoretical election crime by Cheney in the future is not grounds for impeachment, but there are plenty of valid, subtantive grounds to impeach him with as it is. THIS idea should act as a spark to light off all that fuel that is already there.
Cheney must not count our electoral votes.