Frontline debutes a new episode tomorrow Cheney's Law. "For three decades, Vice President Dick Cheney has waged a secretive, and often bitter battle to expand the power of the presidency. Now in a direct confrontation with Congress, as the administration asserts executive privilege to head off investigations into domestic wiretapping and the firing of U.S. attorneys, FRONTLINE meticulously traces the behind-closed-doors battle within the administration over the power of the presidency and the rule of law."
Spencer Ackerman say sin TPMmuckraker "Readers of Barton Gellman and Jo Becker's Cheney series, "Angler," will be familiar with a lot of this material...But that's not to say that Frontline doesn't advance the story. It deftly ties the Ashcroft-hospital bed incident to the appointment of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the subsequent U.S. attorney firings. Much of the film's final 20 minutes presents the argument that the cronyization of DOJ occurred, with Cheney's blessing, to ensure that the department didn't balk, as Goldsmith and his allies did, over torture or surveillance or indefinite detentions. 'It was an effort by the White House to gain control of Justice,' New York Times reporter Scott Shane tells Frontline, 'to make sure there's no repeat of that rebellion of 2004.'"
No comments:
Post a Comment