If you want full specification of the unitary theory (with a good bit of Nixon to boot), then look no further than this interview. Cheney is asked whether there are limits to the president's actions during a war, and Cheney frames his answer in terms of the president's "oath" powers:
"...when you take the oath of office on January 20th...as we did, you take the oath to support and defend and protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." In sum, when the president does it, it is legal. And who gets to decide whether it is legal or not? The president gets to decide it. Cheney declares: "...I think that what we've done has been totally consistent with what the Constitution provides for." How can he be sure? "What we did in this administration is to exert that [authority]...in a matter that I believe, and the lawyers that we looked to for advice believed, was fully consistent with the Constitution and with the laws of the land."
Which lawyers? Yoo and Addington? Yes. Goldsmith and Comey? Not so much.
To amplify the view that Congress has little control over the president's Commander in Chief powers--including the president's "War" power--Cheney brings up the extreme:
The President of the United States now for 50 years is followed at all times, 24 hours a day, by a military aide carrying a football that contains the nuclear codes that he would use and be authorized to use in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States. He could launch the kind of devastating attack the world has never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody, he doesn't have to call the Congress, he doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in. It's unfortunate, but I think we're perfectly appropriate to take the steps we have.
So because we decided decades ago that in the event--and an unlikely one at that--of a nuclear holocaust that the president would need unilateral discretion of a nuclear response, that means the Congress also agreed this meant the unilateral use of armed forces for any conflict the president--and the president alone--determined necessary? Cheney does recognize that his statement probably did not include the view of the Congress because he also brought up the War Powers Act, and only then to dismiss it. Cheney acknowledged that the War Powers Act was still in force, but then this:
No President has ever signed off on the proposition that the War Powers Act is constitutional. I would argue that it is, in fact, a violation of the Constitution; that it's an infringement on the President's authority as the Commander-in-Chief. It's never been resolved, but I think it's a very good example of a way in which Congress has tried to limit the President's authority and, frankly, can't.
The second half of the interview is just bad journalism--and what you would expect from Fox News interviewing either Bush or Cheney. Soft ball questions designed to enhance the administration's brilliance and demean its critics without any qualifications from the reporter. In particular the exchange about the right to hold those captured during the Global War on Terror indefinitely and without access to the regular courts. Little was said about Cheney's earlier claims that these people represented the "Worst of the Worst" and thus would prove a danger to national security if they had their day in court, which contradicted Cheney's claims in the interview that "hundreds" were released as a result of the review of their cases done administratively--something that was also forced on the Bush administration by the Courts.
I think sufficient evidence exists from the interview to suggest that Cheney is completely out of touch with the realities of the last couple of years. Chris Wallace, the interviewer, refers to a quote by Bruce Fein (which a number of other folks, including myself, have made) that argues that the administration has actually done a disservice to the power it sends forward to the new president by their actions, some of which have been knocked down by the Congress or the Supreme Court. This is in direct contradiction to their claims in 2001 to restore the power of the presidency that was so damaged following the resignation of Watergate. Cheney's reply is to deny that the several Supreme Court opinions dealing with the War on Terror, the loss of support in Congress following 2006, and the dreadful public opinion polls, not to mention heightend media and public attention to such obscure things like signing statements, means anything at all.
Eyes wide shut if ever there was such a case.
