Historians would be hard-pressed to find a better example to characterize Dick Cheney’s contempt and wanton disregard for the Constitution than his comments in a recent interview with ABC’s Martha Raddatz.
Raddatz asked Cheney about the deep unpopularity of the Iraq:
Raddatz: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.
Cheney: So?
Raddatz: So? You don’t care what the American people think?
Cheney: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls. There has, in fact, been fundamental change and transformation and improvement for the better. That’s a huge accomplishment.
Dick Cheney swore an oath to the Constitution. I recognize I am not a constitutional scholar, but I have little doubt about the inseparability of the people from the Constitution. The first seven words of the Preamble are quite clear: “We the people of the United States…”
Raddatz did not ask Dick Cheney about the accuracy of opinion polls nor did Cheney provide any evidence the polls are grossly and repeatedly inaccurate. She specifically stated “the American people.” Moreover, there is no evidence to suggest the long-standing results of numerous scientific opinion polls are anything but a reasonably accurate and commonly accepted measure of the people’s sentiment.
It would be easy to assume Cheney and his lieutenant, David Addington, made some twisted incredulous determination, as they did with in Cheney’s unitary executive assertion, that Cheney’s oath is not binding since the Constitution does not specifically provide for a vice presidential oath. And of course the fact that vice presidents have sworn an oath to the Constitution since 1789, makes no bearing or provide an inherent or implied legal basis that would apply to Darth Vader.
Unfortunately, once again, Cheney’s affront to the Constitution and democracy will go largely unnoticed and unchallenged.
Cheney’s trip to the Middle East is indeed a big deal. Around the globe, there is considerable speculation, and angst, all accompanied by theories adaptable to the posit-of-the-moment.
Regardless of whatever spin may be generated by a given faction or the countless milestones that could be associated with Darth Vader’s trip, there are a few key elements that are central to any view considered or stated.
March 3, 2008 - During an historic visit to Iraq, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tells the U.S. to quit Iraq.
March 10, 2008 - Dick Cheney announces trip to Middle East.
Iran wasn’t the only point of contention between Fallon and the rest of the Bush administration….But, it was Fallon’s words on Iran policy that riled neoconservative White House and Beltway hawks. The Esquire article describes the conflict over Iran policy as a Manichaean fight between a Bush administration hellbent on confrontation and a Fallon equally determined to cool down tensions.
March 11, 2008 - Dick Cheney delivers fiery remarks about Iran to Heritage Foundation
“Given all we know about the Iranian regime’s hatred of America, its vow to destroy Israel, and its ongoing efforts to develop the technology that could be used for a nuclear weapon, that is a danger every one of us must take seriously.”
“If orders to attack came from the commander in chief in the White House, the attack would be under Fallon’s orders. So Fallon did what he felt senior military commanders opposed to the invasion of Iraq should have done in early-2003.
The UPI editor’s commentary and analysis is indicative of many views expressed about Admiral Fallon’s recent resignation (Bush-Cheney water-carriers excepted). I did not reference his comments because they were extraordinary, per se, however, the editor succinctly related Cheney’s actions over time to substantial and consequential global events such as the Iraq war.
November 2006 was the last time I remember Cheney making an extended trip to the Middle East, and it was indeed surrounded in controversy. Looking back to that time, all one can see is an administration caught up in an inferno, but amidst all that was transpiring at the time, it is easy to see an administration increasing its focus and war rhetoric on Iran. The focus and rhetoric continued to alarmingly increase until Bush became aware of the findings in the National Intelligence Estimate that was publicly released in December 2007.
And now, one could suggest, based on facts, that the rhetoric, focus, and questionable activities are upon us again.
Vice President Dick Cheney left on Sunday for the Middle East to raise concerns about high oil prices, push Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and seek support for Iraq, where war began five years ago this week.
Cheney, who has strong ties with leaders in the Middle East, will visit Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jerusalem, the Palestinian territories, and Turkey during a nine-day trip to the region.
“Clearly, our ongoing efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan will be discussed,” John Hannah, national security adviser to Cheney, told reporters. “Middle East peace, Iran, the situation in Syria, Lebanon, the violence in Gaza, energy — it’s a very long list and rich agenda.”
Cheney will reinforce the message from visits by President George W. Bush in January and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier this month, in a stepped-up diplomatic push for Israelis and Palestinians to move forward on peace efforts dealt a blow by violence in Gaza and Israel.
“The mood has deteriorated incredibly in the last six weeks since the president was there,” Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said.
Don’t you just love the way we now have five branches of government: the President, the Congress, the Courts, the Fourth Estate, and now the neocon think tanks, who now writes the country’s foreign policy, verbatim.
Ironic at minimum that Cheney takes an extended tour of the Middle East on the fifth anniversary of invading Iraq, which he bears more responsibility for than anyone else in the Bush administration. Even C-Plus Augustus.
Cheney doesn’t go on diplomacy missions. He goes on strong-arm missions, or self-serving missions. Need to reflect on this a bit, but I can think of only two reasons why Darth Vader has scuttled off for nine days to the chaotic region he has coveted for so many years: (1) working on his plan to ensure riches still flow to his pockets after he leaves in 2009; or (2) activities that will somehow be interwoven into the GOP’s 2008 campaign strategy — especially considering John McCain’s surprise appearance in Iraq today.
Update I: Let’s add strategic planning for an attack on Iran to that list. I don’t know why I failed to list it. Brain dead.
It’s the most obvious and speculated scenario, especially considering Admiral Fallon’s demise and the circumstances surrounding it.
The timing could not be worse. Cheney torches the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and the screenwriters are on strike. Can you even begin to imagine what Jon Stewart and his crew would do with that?
Take a break from the seriousness of Iowa and all that stuff. Read Andy Borowitz’s post on Cheney’s disco inferno.
Doctors at George Washington University Hospital gave him an electrical shock to restore the heart’s normal rhythm.
Mr Cheney, who has a history of heart conditions, spent two and a half hours there after seeking treatment for “a lingering cough from a cold”.
I know this is an off-limits question, but unfortunately it is reasonably relevant.
Would the electric shock Cheney received be properly categorized as a sufficient to”shock his conscious?”
I can see my inbox filling up as I write this, but if we knew the answer, maybe it could help us better understand a few things. We’ve all seen the procedure done on TV a bazillion times, and there are countless people that have been zapped back to the land of the living.
So is it an excruciating experience or just another walk in the park? Any M.D.’s or others with that can ameliorate my ignorance?
The NYT has a piece in tomorrow’s edition about a CNBC interview with Dick Cheney, where Cheney commented on tax legislation that Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) will propose. At first I found the article amusing because of the typical Darth Vader comments, but then found it less amusing as the absence of journalistic standards became obvious.
First, he’s the amusing Cheney lead-in:
Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday joined a chorus of Republican opposition to a sweeping overhaul of the tax code proposed by the House’s leading Democratic tax writer.
The Republican response to the proposal by Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, underscored the hardening positions of the two parties on taxes as they head into the 2008 elections.
In a television interview, Mr. Cheney said Mr. Rangel’s proposal would reverse the Bush administration’s tax cuts from 2001 and 2003, one of the president’s signature accomplishments and one the vice president credited with “driving this economy.”
I intended to add my single, smart-alek comment of “driving it straight to hell,” and leave it at that. But the Times goes on to highlight a few specifics of Rangel’s proposal (eliminate AMT, cut taxes on select groups making under $200K, etc.). Then, without citing a single reason why, merited or not — other than what was previously declared by Cheney in the lead-in — Rangel’s proposal was summarily dismissed by the hack posing as a journalist.
Here’s their entire debate on Rangel’s proposal
The proposal has little chance of passing and surviving a presidential veto, as Mr. Cheney made clear. Some action, however, is expected on the alternative minimum tax and other tax proposals in the months ahead, and the fierce reactions set the stage for a debate that will only intensify as the 2008 election heralds the end of the Bush administration and the beginning of the next. (Emphasis added.)
So, according to Steven Lee Myers — New York Times Stenographer for the Vice President — if Dick Cheney says its not going to happen, then God Almighty has spoken, and The Written Word carried forth to the people.
It’s not necessary to check other sources, opinions, how Rangel might convince his colleagues otherwise in due time, or even the possibility of a congressional override. Nope. Just publish what Dick Cheney, who sitteth at the Left and Right Hand of George Bush the Decider, has commanded.
There’s no doubting the influence Dick Cheney has, and if he says it will be vetoed, then that will likely be the case, but that isn’t where the story begins and ends.
George Bush’s warmongering rhetoric, which is derived from Dick Cheney’s insatiable desire to attack Iran is counter-productive at best. Pounding their chests at Ahmadinejad is one thing, but when Putin serves as his proxy, the conflict enters another dimension — a very serious one.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday repeated his opposition to any military action against Iran because of that country’s nuclear program.
No Caspian Sea country should let its territory be used by other countries “for aggressive or military operations against another Caspian state,” said Putin, who is attending a meeting in Tehran of the leaders of the five countries that border the inland sea.
The leaders of the countries, which also include Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, jointly made a similar statement, signaling the opposition of Iran’s neighbors to any military action by the United States or its allies.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: “The Caspian Sea is an inland sea, and it only belongs to the Caspian states. Therefore only they are entitled to have their ships and military forces here.”
The five countries also declared that any country that is a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty can “carry out research and can use nuclear energy for peaceful means without discrimination.” Iran says that all its nuclear work is peaceful.
Vladimir Putin’s warnings against military action against Iran deserve to be taken very seriously. Since we’re not contemplating actually conquering Iran and trying to occupy its territory, people need to understand that the post-strike diplomatic environment is going to be much more important to the future of the Iranian nuclear program than is any damage that bombing Iran with our on-the-table options might or might not do. If Russia decides to just send some scientists with schematics and materiel over to Iran and show them how to build a nuclear bomb, then — bam — nuclear bomb.
Conversely, at the moment not only is Iran under some diplomatic pressure to stop short of weaponizing, many countries around the world are taking direct measures to prevent the Iranians from just easily going and buying the stuff they need. Insofar as an unprovoked American military attack convinces other countries that the real dangerous lunatics live in DC rather than Teheran, countries around the world could cut back on their vigilance and make it much easier for an Iranian nuclear program to succeed.
Cheney will never willingly abandon his imperialistic ideology as outlined in his 1992 manifesto (pdf). His obsession has to be bridled by a more powerful or authoritative figure. Bush 41 stopped him in 1992, but George W. has obviously exercised little control over Cheney, and the last thing we need is for Vladimir Putin to assume the controlling role.
PBS will focus on Darth Vader in a new Frontline documentary, “Cheney’s Law,” beginning tomorrow (Tuesday) at 9 PM ET.
For three decades, Vice President Dick Cheney has waged a secretive and often bitter battle to expand the power of the presidency. Now in a direct confrontation with Congress, as the administration asserts executive privilege to head off investigations into domestic wiretapping and the firing of U.S. attorneys, FRONTLINE meticulously traces the behind-closed-doors battle within the administration over presidential power and the rule of law.
The program will also be available for online viewing.
In an interview with the BBC yesterday, former President Jimmy Carter launched a scathing attack on the Bush administration, and Dick Cheney in particular. When asked about the conflict between Cheney and Condoleezza Rice over Israel’s attack on Syria, Carter pounced on Cheney’s long-standing militant position, the countless mistakes Cheney has made, draft-dodging, and Cheney’s continuing delusions about Iraq.
Partial Transcript:
BBC: There was a report in the New York Times today that said there was a division within the administration, once again between Dick Cheney, the Vice president, and Condoleezza Rice, about how Syria should be engaged — this is following the recent Israeli air strike against a Syrian target.
Intelligence reports say that there was some nascent nuclear activity there, perhaps imported from NK, in that particular building. The Syrians deny it. Condoleezza Rice thinks one should continue along diplomatic track. Dick Cheney says its time for preemptive strikes, like the ones that we’ve seen. Where do you stand?
CARTER: As usual, Dick Cheney is wrong.
He’s a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military and he has been most forceful in the last 10 years or more in fulfilling some of his more ancient commitments that the United States has a right to inject its power through military means in other parts of the world. And, here he’s trying again to promote what might very well be a counterproductive and catastrophic military adventure.
I’m filled with admiration for Condoleezza Rice in standing up to him, which she did even when she was in the White House under President George W. Bush. Now, Secretary of State, her influence is obviously greater than it was then, and I hope she prevails.
BBC: You don’t mince your words on Dick Cheney do you?
CARTER: Well, you know he’s been a disaster for our country. I think he’s been overly persuasive on President George Bush and quite often he’s prevailed.
It was one of his main commitments was to go into Iraq under false pretenses, and he still maintains those false pretenses are accurate. He still maintains that somehow Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attack. He still maintains that Iraq somehow or another had weapons of mass destruction - claims that have been disproven [sic] by all reasonable sources.
Earlier tonight I began writing a reflective post about the failure of Congress to effectively investigate the Justice Department and the White House, and hold them accountable for the various and sundry malfeasance they have committed. After working on it for about an hour, I stopped, deciding to finish later. Moments ago, I just finished reading an incredibly disturbing piece in the Times that reveals more about the abyss Alberto Gonzales, the White House, and many at the DOJ reside in. I regret not completing and publishing the reflective post.
As a POW in World War II, my father was tortured and imprisoned in inhumane conditions. When he died at the age of 81, he still could not talk about many of the horrific experiences he encountered. There is little goodness one can find in the death of their father, but I’m glad he doesn’t have to read or hear about this on the evening news.
When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.
But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.
Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.
Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard.
The classified opinions, never previously disclosed, are a hidden legacy of President Bush’s second term and Mr. Gonzales’s tenure at the Justice Department, where he moved quickly to align it with the White House after a 2004 rebellion by staff lawyers that had thrown policies on surveillance and detention into turmoil.
Congress and the Supreme Court have intervened repeatedly in the last two years to impose limits on interrogations, and the administration has responded as a policy matter by dropping the most extreme techniques. But the 2005 Justice Department opinions remain in effect, and their legal conclusions have been confirmed by several more recent memorandums, officials said. They show how the White House has succeeded in preserving the broadest possible legal latitude for harsh tactics.
Dick Cheney and his invertebrate minions (includes GWB) must be stopped and held accountable.
Former Sen. John Edwards gave his best performance yet in the Democratic presidential debate last night held in New Hanover, New Hampshire. He deftly put Sen. Hillary Clinton on the defensive — distinguishing himself as a clear alternative to Clinton’s current front-runner status.
Edward’s best moment came in an exchange with Hillary Clinton after the candidates were asked if they were elected president, would they still have troops in Iraq at the end of their first term. As
evidenced in the video, Edwards clearly distinguishes himself from Clinton on Iraq primarily with respect to the general election, and in a rare moment for Clinton she resorted to “clarifying” prior statements she made. There is little doubt the presidential election will be the GOP pro-war position versus a Democratic anti-war position. Edwards makes it clear that Hillary’s position has been to continue combat troops in Iraq and thereby disqualifying her as a sound representative of most Democrats wanting to end the war.
I thought Edwards excelled in other areas, such as Iran and Social Security, which I will cover later. I’m not a high school debating judge and can’t quantitatively score the debate, but on a personal level I saw Edwards as the winner in last night’s debate.
Obama’s performance was lacking. He reportedly was sick with a cold, which may have been a factor, but how many people knew that? Few i doubt. He still did not make a concerted effort to knock Clinton off her throne, and some of his answers seemed weak.
Yesterday at a fundraiser, Hillary Clinton called Dick Cheney Darth Vader as she was describing his arrival at Capitol Hill to rescue restless Republicans.
“Vice President Cheney came up to see the Republicans yesterday,” Clinton said at the fundraiser. “You can always tell when the Republicans are getting restless, because the Vice President’s motorcade pulls into the Capitol, and Darth Vader emerges.”
Dick Cheney swore an oath to the Constitution. I recognize I am not a constitutional scholar, but I have little doubt about the inseparability of the people from the Constitution. The first seven words of the Preamble are quite clear: “We the people of the United States…”
Cheney’s trip to the Middle East is indeed a big deal. Around the globe, there is 
I’m just doing some late-night catchup, therefore this is a tad dated, but for the record….
In an interview with the BBC yesterday, former President Jimmy Carter launched a scathing attack on the Bush administration, and Dick Cheney in particular. When asked about the 
