When he worked in Colorado College’s library, Zac Frank found Elizabeth Cheney’s 1988 senior thesis in the trash bin. For her bachelor’s in poli-sci, Dick Cheney’s elder daughter had written “The Evolution of Presidential War Powers.” Frank gives us the scoop:

The 125-page treatise argued that, constitutionally and historically, presidents have virtually unchecked powers in war. Thirteen years before her father became vice president, she had symbolically authored the first legal memorandum of the Bush administration, laying out the same arguments that would eventually justify Guantanamo and extraordinary rendition, wiretapping of American citizens, and, broadly, the unitary theory of the executive that shaped the Bush presidency.

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Time and again, Cheney contends that in times of war, presidents since Washington have justifiably redefined their authority to preserve the country, and she is scornful of any who challenge that authority. As Congress challenged presidential authority toward the end of Vietnam, she casts them as scapegoating the executive. “As public support dwindled so did congressional willingness to accept responsibility,” she writes, “Congress set about to blame the only two men who couldn’t escape responsibility.” For someone who has vested so much faith in executive wisdom, she is surprisingly unwilling to hold it accountable.