
From Fox News (via NationalReview.com and Instapundit), we learn that Vice President-Elect Joseph Biden can't seem to stop displaying his pompous foolishness.
In a blunt, unapologetic interview on "FOX News Sunday," [Vice President Richard] Cheney fired back at Biden for declaring in October that "Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history."Biden has a way of sounding intelligent, right up until the time you start to think about what he actually says. So it is in this case, notes NRO's Shannen Coffin.
[ . . . ]
"Joe's been chairman of the Judiciary Committee, a member of the Judiciary Committee in the Senate for 36 years, teaches constitutional law back in Delaware, and can't keep straight which article of the Constitution provides for the legislature and which provides for the executive. So I think I'd write that off as campaign rhetoric. I don't take it seriously."
[ . . . ]
Biden bit back, however, in a dueling Sunday morning interview that aired on ABC's "This Week" in which he said he stood by his statements.
"His notion of a unitary executive, meaning that, in time of war, essentially all power, you know, goes to the executive, I think is dead wrong. I think it was mistaken. I think it caused this administration, in adopting that notion, to overstep its constitutional bounds, but, at a minimum, to weaken our standing in the world and weaken our security. I stand by that -- that judgment," Biden said.
Well, once again, Mr. Biden, that's no one's notion of the unitary executive except confused Democrats. The unitary executive is simply a recognition, from the first sentence of Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, that the "executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." For the umpteenth time, it is not a theory that the president's power is somehow enhanced, at the expense of Congress, during wartime. It is merely a recognition that there is only one (i.e., uni-tary) executive and that any efforts by Congress to give executive authority to someone other than the President is unconstitutional. It is not a theory about the balance of power between the branches, but a statement about the authority of the president within the Executive Branch. The "notion" that a "unitary executive" means that "in time of war, essentially all power, goes to the executive," is indeed dead wrong. But it's Biden's misconception of that theory that is wrong, not Cheney's.Over at Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds gets the award for most accurate and succinct summary of the exchange.
ALSO, SUN RISES IN EAST: Joe Biden makes fool of himself on Constitution again.





