Rahm Emanuel Calls Cheney’s Bluff

Duncan Black relays this email:

Washington, D.C. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel issued the following statement regarding his amendment to cut funding for the Office of the Vice President from the bill that funds the executive branch. The legislation – the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill – will be considered on the floor of the House of Representatives next week.

“The Vice President has a choice to make. If he believes his legal case, his office has no business being funded as part of the executive branch. However, if he demands executive branch funding he cannot ignore executive branch rules. At the very least, the Vice President should be consistent. This amendment will ensure that the Vice President’s funding is consistent with his legal arguments. I have worked closely with my colleagues on this amendment and will continue to pursue this measure in the coming days.”

Kevin Drum poses this follow-up question:

Will the principled conservatives at National Review manage to avoid commenting on this entirely? Or will they somehow tie themselves into pretzels trying to justify Cheney’s position? They’d be wise to ignore it, but my bet is that Mark Levin won’t be able to restrain himself. So, ten bucks on #2.

But wait a second. There may be principled conservatives and then there is the crew at the National Review. I thought the intersection of these two sets was the null set.