Tag Archives: Cheney

Cheney in ’12? Some in GOP are seriously considering…

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Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, Virginia Foxx
‘At first, it seemed like a joke. Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto opined on Monday that — if the 2012 election were to turn to national security — “it’s hard to think of a better candidate… than Richard B. Cheney.”

But while his headline — “Cheney for President” — provoked guffaws in some quarters, several of the party’s most well-regarded strategists and pollsters are actually taking the idea deadly seriously.

“The Republican Party needs to move forward and build on its past, not return to it,” Alex Castellanos, a frequent CNN analyst and GOP messaging guru, told the Huffington Post via email. “But if the agenda turns to security, Obama is mired in a no-win mess in Afghanistan, and the Obama administration hasn’t created a single job in four years after indebting the nation for generations, maybe Dick Cheney could run on a theme of ‘Change’.” ‘ (Huffington Post)

If this gains enough traction, it would be time to start making emigration plans. And you are laughably mistaken if you assume that the American people would never find the idea appealing enough to make his chances realistic.

Andrew Sullivan comments on the Cheney torture speech

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Impeach Dick

“A simple note having now read the former vice-president’s despicable and disgraceful speech. It confirms the very worst of him, and reveals just how callow, just how arrogant, and just how reckless and unrepentant this man is and has long been. There was not a whisper of regret or reflection; there was a series of lies and distortions, a reckless attack on a graceful successor, inheriting a world of intractable problems, and a reminder that while serious men and women will indeed move on, Cheney never will. He remains a threat to this country’s constitution as he remains a stain on its honor and moral standing. I never believed I would hear a vice-president of the United States not simply defend torture but insist on pride in it, insist on its honor. But that is what he said, with that sly grin insisting that fear always beats reason, that violence always beats dialogue, and that torture is always an American value.” Read the entire column (The Atlantic).

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Dedicated to Dick Cheney

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I saw a newspaper picture from the political campaign
A woman was kissing a child, who was obviously in pain
She spills with compassion, as that young child’s
face in her hands she grips
Can you imagine all that greed and avarice
coming down on that child’s lips

Well I hope I don’t die too soon
I pray the Lord my soul to save
Oh I’ll be a good boy, I’m trying so hard to behave
Because there’s one thing I know, I’d like to live
long enough to savour
That’s when they finally put you in the ground
I’ll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down

When England was the whore of the world
Margaret was her madam
And the future looked as bright and as clear as
the black tarmacadam
Well I hope that she sleeps well at night, isn’t
haunted by every tiny detail
‘Cos when she held that lovely face in her hands
all she thought of was betrayal

And now the cynical ones say that it all ends the same in the long run
Try telling that to the desperate father who just squeezed the life from his
only son
And how it’s only voices in your head and dreams you never dreamt
Try telling him the subtle difference between justice and contempt
Try telling me she isn’t angry with this pitiful discontent
When they flaunt it in your face as you line up for punishment
And then expect you to say “Thank you” straighten up, look proud and pleased
Because you’ve only got the symptoms, you haven’t got the whole disease
Just like a schoolboy, whose head’s like a tin-can
filled up with dreams then poured down the drain
Try telling that to the boys on both sides, being blown to bits or beaten and
maimed
Who takes all the glory and none of the shame

Well I hope you live long now, I pray the Lord your soul to keep
I think I’ll be going before we fold our arms and start to weep
I never thought for a moment that human life could be so cheap
‘Cos when they finally put you in the ground
They’ll stand there laughing and tramp the dirt down

— Elvis Costello
[thanks, abby]

Seymour Hersh describes ‘executive assassination ring’ that reported to Cheney

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United States Joint Special Operations Command...

“…After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet. That does happen.

“Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command — JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. …

“Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths.

“Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.

“It’s complicated because the guys doing it are not murderers, and yet they are committing what we would normally call murder. It’s a very complicated issue. Because they are young men that went into the Special Forces. The Delta Forces you’ve heard about. Navy Seal teams. Highly specialized.

“In many cases, they were the best and the brightest. Really, no exaggerations. Really fine guys that went in to do the kind of necessary jobs that they think you need to do to protect America. And then they find themselves torturing people.

“I’ve had people say to me — five years ago, I had one say: ‘What do you call it when you interrogate somebody and you leave them bleeding and they don’t get any medical committee and two days later he dies. Is that murder? What happens if I get before a committee?’

“But they’re not gonna get before a committee.” via MinnPost.

Cheney and the Goat Devil

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Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld shares a ...

Maureen Dowd: “One of the great mysteries of the Bush presidency is whether W. ever had an epiphany when he realized that he had been manipulated by Dick Cheney, whether it ever hit him that he had trusted the wrong father figure.” via NYTimes Op-Ed.

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Contrasting views of Cheney

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The only patriotic solution
The only patriotic solution

‘Historian Julian Zelizer calls Vice President Dick Cheney the most influential vice president in history. Lanny Davis agrees with Joe Biden that Cheney was “the most dangerous.” To Grover Norquist, Cheney’s story is a “tragedy.”

To Steven G. Calabresi, the tragedy was the “Borking” of Cheney by his opponents. The nation should be thankful, said business executive Steve Steckler, that Cheney, not Biden, was “manning the tower walls” when the country was attacked on 9/11.

Such were the contrasting views of Cheney presented Monday by contributors to Politico’s Arena forum in a debate that inevitably will play out for decades to come. It followed Cheney’s appearance on Fox News Sunday, in which he would only go so far as to call himself a “consequential” vice president.

The conversation came as a CNN poll reported that nearly a quarter of those surveyed nationally thought Cheney was the worst vice president in history. Another 41 percent rated his performance as “poor.” ‘

via Politico.

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Cheney Taunts Bush, Pardon Me or Else

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Beavis & Butt-head as George W. Bush & Dick Cheny

“With his ABC interview Vice President Dick Cheney put a smoking gun on the table. He admitted that he, along with other top administration officials, personally approved the CIA’s waterboarding of prisoners. That he said it unapologetically is merely his low-keyed way of declaring open war.

President Bush has been working on his legacy by circulating an upbeat, 2-page talking point memo with a description of his successes in office. Bush likes to white-wash and obfuscate. Cheney prefers a more aggressive approach.

Always blunt, two-fisted, and condescending, the question is, why admit that he approved waterboarding? And why now? Maybe it was egotism, pure and simple, his own version of a legacy campaign where he takes credit for a policy that he asserts made America safe. But to his detractors it is an admission of guilt that is prosecutable, as damning as Jack Kervorkian’s 60 Minutes interview that landed him in prison.”

via David Latt in HuffPo.

The Last Dick

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Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United States.

‘When Richard B. Cheney exits his undisclosed location next month, he will probably be the last major figure in American life to answer to the name “Dick.” ‘

via The Daily Beast.