Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Decision Time

Supreme Court Hears Cheney Secrecy Case

OK, not really; we won't know until July what decision the Court, including Justice Scalia, will make. (I suspect we can guess his vote right now, though.) The Times argues this morning, unsurprisingly, that the Court should force Cheney to reveal the names of non-government participants in the deliberations of his committee, a group that many suspect includes such charming figures as executives from Enron and others who stood to benefit the most from a short-sighted, profit-driven energy policy. The Times is right; no president, Democrat or Republican, should be able to stretch the notion of privilege to allow regulations to be written by those who would like not to be regulated at all.

This morning's editorial also raises the spectre of a 5-4 vote, which would be, in this case, quite a blow to the Court. The four justices whose prudence we rely upon (Souter, Breyer, Ginsburg, and the good John Stevens) and the two who have shown, despite their vote for Bush in 2000, that they are not in his pocket (Kennedy and O'Connor) should band together in this case and prevent the radical trio (Rehnquist, Thomas, and Scalia) from doing more damage to the standing of the Court by rejecting Cheney's ludicrous argument that he answers to no man but himself and, perhaps, Bush.

You answer to us, you secretive, undisclosed-location-loving thug. Fork over your damned documents, and may the contents of them damn you to a quiet retirement in Wyoming.

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