March 3, 2002

60 Feet Under

By MAUREEN DOWD

ASHINGTON — In a banner headline on Friday, The Washington Post blared: "Shadow Government Is at Work in Secret." The article said President Bush had assembled a cadre of officials to operate under the radar, out of the sunlight.

This is news?

The president did that on Jan. 20, 2001.

But it turns out that after Sept. 11, wanting to make sure that everything wouldn't collapse if there was a nuclear attack on Washington, he did it again. He formed a secret government within a secret government. A shadow of a shadow.

It suits this administration to a T- ball, reflecting its twin obsessions with secrecy and self-perpetuation.

The president realized that Dick Cheney couldn't govern all by himself after an Armageddon, so he set up a pre-post-apocalyptic staff, sending about 100 midlevel officials to two subterranean locations outside the capital.

Now Mr. Cheney is Lord of the Rings, ruling over his very own Moria, an underground kingdom of bureaucratic hobbits and orcs.

"Officials who are activated for what some of them call `bunker duty' live and work underground 24 hours a day, away from their families," The Post reported.

The hidden administration is known as Continuity of Government, or C.O.G., while the one at 1600 Pennsylvania is known as C.O.D., or Continuity of Dynasty, a project designed to keep the Bushes in the White House until 2008 and beyond.

In the bunker, the Bush-Cheney dream of ruling without justifying their actions is beautifully realized. The administration-in-waiting features only the executive branch.

Continuity does not require checks and balances. Sixty feet under, the vice president will never be sued by the General Accounting Office. Executive privilege is safe when the only branch is executive.

The Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle, said on Friday that he hadn't even been told about the existence of a shadow government, much less offered a cranny or a cot in case of a nuclear attack.

"We have not been informed at all about the role of the shadow government or its whereabouts or what particular responsibilities they have and when they would kick in," Senator Daschle said drily. First he'll have to figure out which administration to pry the information from — the secretive one or the really secretive one.

The Bushies probably need Mr. Daschle's space for Karl Rove, a.k.a. King C.O.D. And by keeping out the legislative and judicial branches, the atomic government can continue to do what it's already done: set up a long mahogany bar with single-malt Scotch for Pioneers, out-of-gas Enron chieftains and other corporate sycophants.

Down there, they won't have to heed the nagging of Senator Robert Byrd, who last week threatened to stop writing "blank checks" for the military if the administration could not explain its war plan.

The Bush bunker does not bother with bipartisanship or even the pretense of it. It is all about blank checks and carte blanche.

If Washington gets whacked, C.O.G's mission is to maintain "essential government functions."

C.O.G. will implement the I.R.S. dictum that in the event of nuclear attack, tax collection will continue (from the poor and the middle class, not the rich). It will undoubtedly figure out how to keep up those arsenic levels after the E.P.A. is flattened and commence drilling in Alaska after the Energy Department is gone.

Without Democrats or journalists, the underground executive branch can operate the way the real executive branch would like to, and frequently does — without a lot of second-guessing, Freedom of Information Act requests, complaints from civil libertarians and attention to the rights of Marin County hot-tubbers.

Nothing will be transcribed. So there will be no reason to clean up the language in President Bush's transcripts, as the White House has done routinely since 9/11.

The government Down Under won't need a press secretary, even one who is as opaque as Ari Fleischer. It is universally accepted there that all the world's woes can be traced back to Bill Clinton, and there is no need to apologize for simply stating the obvious.

-- Heil Hitler (60 @ Feet. Under), March 05, 2002

Answers

Cynical One,

Just curious. What if our Middle-Eastern friends succeed in launching a large scale terror attack (nuke?) in DC or wherever (maybe where you live). You know, several hundred thousand dead or more. Would that convince you that maybe there is a little problem or would you somehow blame it on Pres W?

Best to prepare your BS in advance.

What planet do you live on?

-- (Roland@hatemail.com), March 06, 2002.

I live on Planet Earth dimwit, though it may be difficult for you to see that since you obviously have your head firmly planted in Dubya's ass.

There is nothing wrong with having a backup system in case of an emergency. I never said there was. But it needs to be done legitimately, and in compliance with our Constitution. Dubya's not real big on legitimacy.

It is in direct violation of our Constitution to form a government that only has an Executive branch, with no other departments to serve as a system of checks and balances, though I don't really expect an ignorant right-winger like you to be aware of such things.

The Constitution states that there must also be Legislative and Judicial Branches, otherwise it can become a dictatorship, which is exactly what the NWO is planning to do. I doubt that they would allow an idiot like Dubya to serve as the actual dictator, they are probably just using him to set the stage. On the other hand, he is dumb enough that most of the people would never view him as a threat, so maybe it will occur while he is still in office.

-- (watch what @ happens. dimwit), March 06, 2002.

watch what happens dimwit,

You had better stop dropping acid. Your brain is suffering irrepable damage and the problem is only getting worse.

-- bogsworth (running@on.8cylinders), March 06, 2002.

bogsworth, couldn't have said it better.

Now that the White House has come out with a list of congressmen that were briefed AND taken over to the 'underground', Daschle has shut up. Further this report came out about three months back in some other news outlet. Only when the Wash Post writes about it, Daschle's ears pick up. What a dog!

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), March 06, 2002.

Don't worry about a shadow government crawling out of the smoking ruins of America to collect our tax money. After the attack, we were told that we might not get paid for an unknown period of time, but would we please come to work anyway? (We did.) The banking system was in a temporary mess, and they simply couldn't get our checks to us. And that was a scenario of relative triviality compared to a nuke attack anywhere in this country. Taxation would be the least of our immediate worries.

-- helen (no@leaders.without.the.led), March 07, 2002.

-- (nazis@in.disguise), March 08, 2002.