On Friday, Keith Olbermann did some fact checking of White House spokesperson Dana Perino - and caught her in a bald-faced lie. 

... A severe case of whiplash regarding who exactly this Dick Cheney guy is anyway. As we told you yesterday, the VP's office previously claimed he's exempt from an Executive Order requiring all of the executive branch to report its handling of all classified information to a federal office known as ISOO. His rationale was he is not part of executive branch.

Today that rationale flipped 180 degrees when spokeperson Perino revealed that Mr. Cheney has evolved to a point where he is not just in the Executive Branch but he's indistinguishable from the President himself.

Perino: "the President did not intend for the VP to be treated separately from how he would treat himself - the President's intention was never to separate VP out from himself... if you look at page 18 of Executive Order when you have a chance - there's a distinction regarding the VP versus what is an agency."

Well... our staff had a chance - no exemption at all for the VP on page 18. So we emailed the White House which referred us to sections 1.3 which is about something else altogether and 5.2 which makes no mention of the VP.

In other words, Dana Perino lied right in the faces of the Washington Press Corpse. Is that acceptable to them? Do they care if the President's spokeperson flat-out lies?

Olbermann continues:

In fact there is no exemption for the VP or even the President when it comes to reporting on classified materials. The President himself, most significantly his NSC, has mostly been in compliance with ISOO. Why? his Executive Order specifically says it applies to "any executive agency, any military department, and any other entity within the executive branch."

Coupled with Perino's claim that Cheney is part of the executive branch, his noncompliance leaves Cheney only one argument for noncompliance: that he is no longer an entity of any kind, having evolved at last into a literal shadow government unto himself.

Olbermann meant to be sarcastic, but there is a real legal issue here that needs to be addressed.

Perino argues that since the Executive Office of the President issued the Executive Order, that it doesn't apply to himself or to the Vice President. Is that a solid legal argument?

Obviously David Addington Perino feels it's a stronger argument than claiming the Vice President is not part of the Executive Branch, because she repeated it a dozen times.

But that leaves several questions unanswered which should be asked repeatedly at the next White House press briefing until the White House gives a clear and complete answer:

1. Are the President and Vice President covered by this and other Executive Orders or not? Since there are hundreds of Executive Orders covering a wide range of issues, it's inconceivable that the President and Vice President are automatically exempt from all of them, as Perino claims.
2. If they were not exempted from this Executive Order, did Cheney break the law by failing to comply? If so, what are the penalties?
3. Finally, do the President and Vice President believe the Vice President is part of the Executive Branch or not? No "interesting question" dodges - answer yes or no.

White House Press Corpse, are you listening?