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To the editor:
Dick Cheney’s death and George W. Bush’s eulogy at his funeral were important reminders that the immense darkness of the authoritarian Trump administration had an earlier 21st century antecedent: the Bush/Cheney administration (ironic, given Cheney’s strong opposition to Trump). Some of its destructive policies continued, and even expanded, during subsequent administrations.
As John Dean wrote, the Cheney-driven Bush administration “push[ed] the presidency off its Constitutional foundation.” It undermined congressional power of oversight, independence of the judiciary and the rule of law. This unitary executive theory promoted by Cheney would later be invoked by Trump and Project 2025.
Numerous examples could be cited. Bush used 150 “signing statements” attached to over 1,100 separate sections in Congressional statutes. He claimed they conflicted with his interpretation of the Constitution. Intelligence was manipulated by Cheney and David Addington, his chief aide, to justify the Iraq invasion and its disastrous occupation. Torture, including waterboarding, was approved for “enemy combatants” sent to Guantanamo Bay and to black sites around the world.
These actions violated the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva Accords. Illegal warrantless surveillance was carried out, and statutes and treaties were ignored. U.S. attorneys were unjustly fired, while there were politically motivated agency hirings. There was an expansion of executive privilege, sweeping changes for classified information guidelines to enhance secrecy, and control over career officials from the Department of Justice to the EPA.
Supreme Court Associate Justice Robert Jackson warned that every validated claim of executive power “lies like a loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim (in the case of Trump it’s frequently an implausible claim) of an urgent need. Every repetition … expands it to new purposes.”
Howard Elterman
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namrogm
Excellent reminders of the Bush- Cheney borrow show. When my sister was in and out of consciousness at Stony Brook Hospital in 2006, the nurse asked what year it was. She answered “2 more years of “W!” The nurse said, “Patty, you’re alert and you’re right!”
Tuesday, December 9, 2025 Report this