Congressional Oversight

I consider myself fairly well read and informed about the issues of the day. But I missed this story last week and only caught it through the satirical website Ironic Times. It appears that John Conyers has threatened to subpoena members of Dick Cheney's office to testify about their deliberations over the torture issue. The lawyer for one of Cheney's aides, David Addington, claims that Congress lacks the authority to question members of the vice president's staff, in an apparent nod to Cheney's earlier argument that the vice president's office is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch. I guess that amidst all the stories about Obama's flag pin, Rev. Wright, Clinton's "testicular fortitude" and the gas tax, such a vital showdown over the very nature of our government isn't very newsworthy (the link to the story about the lawyer's claims is from the Guardian, a British paper).