For Cheney to be pushing the envelope on executive power is especially ironic, given the original constitutional status of the vice presidency: That office is a vestigial afterthought tacked on to the Constitution toward the end of the 1787 Constitutional Convention to solve a gaggle of unrelated problems. And it quickly proved more trouble than it was worth.

The vice presidency, in short, was never intended as an independent center of constitutional power--let alone home of a shadow EPA (the rather wonderfully named White House Council on Environmental Quality); the secret architect of national energy policy; and the shameful global detention and torture policies--including the wretched military commission system.

Perhaps we do need to start thinking about why perhaps the most powerful office in the country is not on the top of a ballot, and why its powers are not defined -- or circumscribed -- by any law or constitutional provision.  It's long past time for Congress to take this on. Past legislation has further provided clear channels of responsibility, particularly on military matters. It would be a good debate to have before the 2008 election, when Cheney will start opening the envelopes.

Earnest, sad, and righteous, they are not. More inspired by M*A*S*H or Dr. Strangelove than The Deer Hunter or Coming Home, a new pack of political films that defy the clichés of the post-9/11 Iraq War cinema has arrived. Rife with satire and absurdity, with more ambiguity and less agit-prop, they don't toe the MoveOn party line and go beyond the familiar war-is-hell mantra. As documentary filmmaker Michael Tucker says: "Yes, it's tragic and horrible. Duh. What else is there?"

For one, there's the bizarre madness of it at all, as shown in Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. While ostensibly a raunchy teen comedy, the film's archvillain is a racist, ignorant deputy chief of Homeland Security who sends Harold and Kumar to face the horrors of Gitmo. "While it's obviously absurd," co-writer-director Hayden Schlossberg acknowledges of the film's premise, "there's an element of truth. There have been people thrown in Guantánamo who have done nothing. We like the idea of doing something about these subjects in a way that's not serious."

"Sincerity handicaps you," explains Tucker, who co-directed a number of Iraq docs, including Gunner Palace. "Trying to be earnest about something—it does nothing to explain it," he says. "That's why the fiction films have largely failed—because people are already in that emotional place." 

Let's start by stating the obvious: Guantánamo is not just a prison. It is an entirely new kind of penal institution that perfectly embodies the Administration's new paradigm for a never-ending, ubiquitous "war on terror."

At Guantánamo, individuals are held indefinitely as "enemy combatants," a term that conjures images of captured enemy soldiers. In fact, the government's own data shows that the majority of prisoners at Guantánamo never took up arms against the United States or engaged in hostile conduct toward this country. The cells at Guantánamo are full of civilians, many of whom were seized in places like Bosnia and Gambia, thousands of miles from any battlefield.

As they seek to repair the damage and recast the future, America's leaders should look beyond Guantánamo and remember the commitment to justice that made this country great for more than two centuries. The question is not whether America should imprison terrorists. It is whether America will treat all accused persons consistently with its Constitution and values.

The military was scrambling Monday to put together defense teams for the six Guantánamo captives singled out by a Pentagon prosecutor for death-penalty eligible charges alleging they conspired to kill thousands in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

"I will move as quickly as I can, but we will take our time and we will not be bullied by the government," said Army Col. Steve David, Chief Defense Counsel in the Office of Military Commissions. David, an Indiana state judge who was mobilized to the job, said at a bare minimum he needed six lawyers, six paralegals and six independent investigators with top security clearances to work on the trials.

As of Monday morning, he said, he had a sum total of seven military lawyers assigned to his office.