What does the vice-president do?

Tom Maertens

Recently on CNBC, Republican VP pick Sarah Palin asked what it is that vice presidents do.

Well, if you are Dick Cheney, you start your morning with an intelligence briefing, and if the intelligence doesn't fit your policies, then you dial up your Neocon proteges to fix the intelligence or fabricate other stories to support the administration's policies. Part of every day's agenda is to consider how best to use the U.S. military to take over some other country's oil and camouflage the move with a propaganda campaign.

After that, the VP probably has a staff meeting to brainstorm on how to undermine the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, and how best to kill Social Security and Medicare. This requires coordination with Grover Norquist and Steve Moore who are the point of the spear in bankrupting the government, which will then provide the excuse to cut entitlements. Staff can handle the coordination.

Then Cheney probably calls in David Addington and company to debate which new torture techniques the U.S. should adopt, and how best to circumvent existing treaties and the Constitution. Somebody must coordinate with Michael Muskasey and Justice so they know what investigations to kill or sidetrack.

At some point in the morning, the White House press spokesperson brings in the proposed propaganda points for the daily press follies. The VP either farms them out to his staff to clear, or if a coverup of press leaks on covert CIA agents is involved, then the VP himself probably reviews them personally.

Someone then must be detailed to call Fox News, the Washington Times and Rush Limbaugh to brief them on the official White House talking points, so that Roger Ailes and others can transmit the directives to staff members.

The Republican congressional leaders must also be called in to get their orders and memorize the latest propaganda attacks on Democrats. You know, "Four legs bad, two legs good" stuff.

There are usually other matters to take care of, such as contacting fundies, like Pat Robertson and James Dobson, to pass on the latest talking points and brief them on their role(s)in promoting the Republican agenda and denying global warming.

At some point, the VP himself has to track down Bush, usually on vacation or out biking, to inform him what the government will do that day.

Then there are the routine jobs the VP and his staff undertake on a daily basis, such as helping pass out slush fund money from the White House program on Faith-based Initiatives; finding ways to transfer taxpayers money to favored corporations and hand out more subsidies to Big Oil; eliminating Congressional oversight of the executive branch; issuing regulations that protect corporate tax shelters in Caribbean tax havens and Switzerland; continuing the consolidation of corporate media which answers to the RNC; finding new ways to bust unions and punish union organizers; issuing new regulations to support pharmaceutical companies, the financial, insurance, credit card and banking industries; and opening federal land to exploitation by hard-rock mining companies and the coastal regions to oil drilling.

There will always be the odd investigation to punish press leakers, and of course appointments to make in order to neutralize regulatory agencies and retaliate against whistle-blowers. Reports that the VP torments small animals in his spare time cannot be confirmed, and in any case, are not part of his official duties.

This schedule hardly leaves time for the VP to terrorize the bureaucracy and twist Fat Cats' arms for money. Beyond that, Cheney has to coordinate various cabals and conspiracies, including the one to subvert the Constitution, and the Neocons' plans to subvert/invade various foreign countries. Don't forget the Carlyle Group and relationships with Bush the Don (who handles the Moonie account, with its thousand front groups, and milks the Saudis), coordinating payments to clandestine agents of the unofficial Ministry of Truth, such as Armstrong Williams and Cubans "journalists" in Florida, using cutouts such as Karl Rove to set up 527s like Freedom's Watch and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth; and meeting with the highly secretive Council for National Policy. Did I mention the Illuminati?

So that's what the VP does. It's fair for Republicans to ask if Sarah Palin is up to this.