Is Dick Cheney Unconstitutional?

Glenn Reynolds at instapundit recently published an article in the Northwestern Law Review journal asking about the constitutionality of the Vice President being involved in executive decisions. The NYT has a shortened version of it. Interestingly, Reynolds notes that the only clear purpose of the Vice President spelled out in the Constitution is the VP's role in the legislative branch. The VP is a tie breaker, and nothing else is mentioned beyond that. So the least that we have is that the VP is a part of the legislative branch, and not the executive branch. But Reynolds makes some other points that may not be as obvious. The main purpose of the VP is to serve as a "spare President" who we'll need in the event that our main President is removed for whatever reason. Just like you don't want to drive around on a spare tire, you don't want to drive around with a spare President because if the main President is removed (let's say for impeachment), then it puts at risk your spare also being removed for impeachment. You can easily see the applicability of that insight to the Bush administration. If Bush was ever at risk for impeachment, it's always seemed that it was because of joint decisions made by Bush/Cheney. Whether that perception's accurate is another matter, but that's the overall consensus among watchers as far as I can tell. So imagine if Bush were removed - what an uproar there would be to immediately have Cheney as President. Cheney's proactive involvement in the Bush administration always seemed to be because he had no Presidential ambitions himself. After 9/11, I get the sense that the White House became a warroom with Cheney and Bush in fairly deep strategic collaborations with one another. That's not obviously a bad thing, and if it was the case, was most likely due to management styles and issues related to trust and mutual respect. But, Reynolds nonetheless makes a good general argument that for the sake of transition in the event of the President deposed, you want the VP to be pristine, and clearly that is not the case with the Bush/Cheney administration where if anything, the VP is actually more worn down than the President himself.