Last Thursday, House Oversight Committee Henry Waxman (D-CA) sent a letter to Vice President Dick Cheney's office asking why Cheney had failed to comply with Executive Order 12958, an order that governs the handling of classified information. The order requires the executive branch to archive classified information with the National Archives, and also requires inspections by the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO). Cheney had not been in compliance with the order since 2003, Waxman's letter said.

Waxman further wrote that, for some crazy reason, Cheney's office ignored repeated requests by the National Archives for the classified information. Cheney also refused to allow ISOO to inspect his office as the executive order required and, most interestingly, asserted that the Office of the Vice President is not part of the executive branch and therefore is not required to comply with Executive Order 12958. Yes, the same legal scholars who brought you the president's ability to interpret the Geneva Conventions by himself have brought you this: the Vice President is not part of the executive branch. They're basing this on the silly notion that, since the Vice President performs the additional task of presiding over the Senate, he is not part of the executive branch.

ISOO asked the Attorney General of the United States, who, among other things, is chiefly responsible for enforcing the laws of this country, to settle the dispute as to whether or not Cheney could refuse to be inspected. The Attorney General never followed up, and Cheney retaliated by calling for abolishing the ISOO.

On MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Olbermann suggested that Dick Cheney may be his own branch of government.

That was Thursday. Friday, the New York Times published a piece on this, sending the story from the blogosphere into the print media. At a press conference on Friday, White House spokesperson Dana Perino called the Vice President's patent refusal to comply with the law "a little bit of a non-issue" but didn't elaborate on whether or not the Vice President was actually not part of the executive branch, preferring to muse that it's an "interesting constitutional question that people can debate." Yes, we can debate it. as though there are two equally valid opinions in this matter, like evolution, global warming, and torture.

And today, the White House has responded by saying, "Oh, and by the way, we're exempt from that law, too." Yes, folks, reality is officially on its summer break. Not only is the Vice President not a member of the executive branch, but the President isn't, either.

The Los Angeles Times reports, "Although it doesn't specifically say so, Bush's order was not meant to apply to the vice president's office or the president's office, a White House spokesman said." See, it's funny how the Bush Administration can interpret laws to mean things that they don't say, as though the law were, oh, I don't know, non-existent. In the same way that the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force implicitly allowed the president to engage in warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens, clearly the president's 2001 executive order exempts the president from the classified information requirements of the rest of the executive branch, especially because it doesn't say so.

It's amazing how, every time something new happens, the abuse is more and more blatant. How long will it be before the Bush administration starts shooting U.S. citizens in the street?