Opinion: Dick Cheney, thumbing his nose at us to the very last?

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

At first I thought, ‘’Riiiiiight ... ‘’

The Bush White House, on its last night in power, announced that Vice President Dick Cheney pulled a muscle in his back while moving boxes. He’ll be in a wheelchair for the Obama inauguration.

Dick Cheney -- a man with a ticker so bum that even Dr. House couldn’t help him -- is moving boxes? Don’t those people have people to do all that menial schlepping for them?

And then I thought, hmmmm, what kind of boxes would be so important that the almost-ex-vice president would be moving them himself?

And then I thought ... oh, those kinds of boxes. Boxes full of papers that he doesn’t want anyone else to see, ever? Boxes destined for his home shredder? That would be, uh, back in Wyoming?

A week before Christmas -- which was about three months after a federal judge had ordered Cheney’s office to preserve all his official records -- Cheney’s lawyers were back in court, blathering that only the vice president can decide which records from his eight years in office should by law be handed over to the National Archives by ... oh, what’s that deadline again?

Oh yes -- noon on January 20, when he ceases to be the vice president. The same date when, according to the Associated Press story about the court case, Cheney could be ‘’potentially taking millions of records that might otherwise become public.’’

Cheney’s being sued by a public watchdog group under a 30-year-old law requiring the departing president and vice president to hand over to the National Archives virtually all of their records from their time in office. Cheney’s essentially blown raspberries at the law, and its enforcers. After some National Archives staff tried to conduct a routine inspection of Cheney’s papers several years ago, his staff reportedly tried to get that inspection unit abolished.

Cheney will be in a wheelchair for only a couple of days, the White House assured us. Wheelchair or no, can someone please frisk him on his way out? Remember, Oliver North’s secretary, Fawn Hall, eluded NSC investigators by smuggling highly classified documents out of her boss’ office -- in her boots.

EPA/Mike Theiler