Well and faithfully

A good summary from Talking Points Memo:

The background details are surprisingly straightforward. In 1995, the Clinton White House issued an executive order establishing uniform rules for protecting classified information. In 2003, the Bush White House revised it. The order plainly includes any executive-branch agency, any military department, and “any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information.” The entire branch of government, the order said, is subject to oversight.
. . .

Look, I can appreciate the fact that the White House is in a jam here. Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the gang repeatedly mishandled classified materials during a time of war, got caught, ignored their own rules, and is now struggling to rationalize their conduct. When the federal agency responsible for oversight tried to do its job, the Vice President reportedly tried to abolish the agency. This isn’t a fact-pattern that’s easy to spin.

But the explanations thus far have been transparently ridiculous, up to and including the notion that the Vice President, as defined in Article II of the Constitution, isn’t actually part of the executive branch of government.

The Executive Orders go back well before Clinton. NewMexiKen was first hired by the National Archives more than 30 years ago as a result of the Nixon classified materials order (E.O. 11652). (It frightens the hell out of me that I remembered that number without looking it up.)

Richard Cheney does not believe in the American system of government despite the oath that he has taken many times (as did I, as does every federal employee except the president, whose oath is in the Constitution):

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Well and faithfully. The least we can ask is “faithfully.”

Update: Rep. Rahm Emanuel has introduced an amendment to an Executive branch appropriations bill which would omit funding for the Office of the Vice President. Either the Vice President is part of the Executive branch — and subject to its regulations — or not.