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In the Northwest: Cheney's government of, for and by the elite people

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

By JOEL CONNELLY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

If U.S. authorities really need to wring confessions out of al-Qaida terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, they ought to strap suspects to chairs and make them watch celebrity lawyers on network TV babble about Michael Jackson and Kobe Bryant.

The yakking TV barristers had a chance to go from celebrity to substance yesterday as the U.S. Supreme Court took up Cheney v. U.S. District Court, a case with far- reaching implications for separation of powers and government secrecy in the United States.

It didn't happen.

As a Seattle visitor, New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks, noted: "Our media cover scandal very well and policy very badly."

Actually, the conduct of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force -- and the ceaseless effort to stonewall its deliberations -- is scandalous.

The panel's composition, its meetings and consultations in formulating a national energy policy were guarded like nuclear secrets. Everything was off the record.

Substantive evidence indicates that major Bush-Cheney contributors joined in deliberations. Enron CEO Kenneth Lay had a private meeting with Cheney, giving the vice president a memo outlining the company's positions.

The eventual energy plan reflected industry influence. It boosted subsidies for such traditional players as nuclear and coal. Its dig-it, drill-it strategy targeted federal lands, including Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, for development.

A version of the plan, passed by the House of Representatives, contains an astonishing $31 billion in tax breaks, grants and other forms of corporate welfare.

The bill even bought off Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle with a pumped-up ethanol subsidy. So far, a filibuster has blocked the legislation in Congress' upper chamber. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has distinguished herself as an organizer of the resistance.

Over the past three years, a variety of interests -- left and right -- have tried to pry open deliberations of the Cheney task force.

Ranks of those calling for an open White House do NOT include the Washington, D.C., conservative establishment and its media mouthpieces. A decade ago, they raised hell and sued to open up secret deliberations by Hillary Clinton's health care task force.

In this round, the anti-secrecy forces have been rebuffed at every turn. A reading of tea leaves from yesterday's arguments before the Supremes indicates that Cheney may be able to keep the lid on.

As well, the Cheney secrecy case shows the increasing role of activist federal judges -- on the political right.

The initial lawsuit to open up records of the energy task force was brought by the General Accounting Office, Congress' inves- tigative arm. The GAO used the Federal Advisory Committee Act, a 1970s-era law that precludes secretly using people outside government to do government work.

The case went before newly minted U.S. District Judge John Bates, a lawyer who worked for Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. Starr tried to pry the most intimate information out of the Clinton White House.

Bates wasn't about to pry open this White House. He tossed the case out of federal court, claiming that the comptroller general (GAO's boss) did not have "standing to sue." Adding insult to injury, Bates noted that Congress could have subpoenaed the information. Of course, the president's allies control both houses of Congress.

The suit before the Supremes yesterday is the product of a political odd couple, the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that often sued the Clintons.

Sitting prominently on the bench was Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who flew to Louisiana with Vice President Cheney for a duck-hunting trip in January. Scalia has also dined with the vice president.

The Sierra Club formally asked Scalia not to participate in the energy task force case. The justice refused last March. Heaping scorn on the environmental group, he said that "a rule that required members of this court to remove themselves from cases in which the official actions of friends were at issue would be utterly disabling."

Scalia gave hints yesterday that, as usual, he will take the side of state power.

"Involvement of private individuals in the task force does not equate with membership of private individuals in the task force," he argued from the bench.

Big issues are at stake here.

After speaking to Seattle Pacific University's annual community breakfast, Brooks took Cheney's side. He said it is time to "restore the prerogatives" of the presidency that have "eroded over the years." Those asked to advise a president should feel free to do so in an "honest and reflective" manner without fear of disclosure, Brooks added.

The conservative columnist said he is more concerned about the proposals that come from a White House task force than its makeup and deliberations.

We differ.

The makeup of such a task force usually determines what comes out the other end.

Cheney's task force talked to senior executives from the coal, chemical and natural gas industries, and major nuclear and coal-burning utilities. The wish lists of these corporate bigwigs were transposed into national policy.

A broader consultation might have compared costs and feasibility of coal and nuclear with expanding wind and solar power, and perhaps a national commitment to energy efficiency.

Yet, a voice from ages past suggests that Cheney was out to do more than reward energy industry contributors. The veep's motives "suggest a still larger play," says John Dean, White House counsel and whistle-blower under Richard Nixon.

In his new book, "Worse Than Watergate," Dean looks at the long-running battle and writes of Cheney: "He was looking at a bigger picture, one which -- by connecting a few dots -- begins to emerge, and Cheney's actions are part of the effort to weaken Congress, which is one of many building blocks in returning to a Nixonian imperial presidency."

In other words, it's back to the future.

P-I columnist Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or [e-mail]

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