.
“if you want to really know a man’s character, give him power”
.
Everything that’s gone horribly wrong with American politics over the last fifty years, embodied in one mostly-human individual. From Politicalwire:
Dick Cheney Tears Into Condoleeza Rice
In an upcoming documentary about the legacy of Dick Cheney, Foreign Policy notes the former vice president lashes out at Condoleezza Rice for overriding his recommendation to bomb a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007.Said Cheney: “I thought [destroying the reactor] would reassert the kind of authority and influence we had back in ’03 when we took down Saddam Hussein and eliminated Iraq as a potential source of WMD. Condi was on the wrong side of all those issues so we had significant issues.”..
And when the macho fantasies go horribly wrong, find a woman or a minority — preferably both! — to blame for your failures. It’s the Amurkin way!
I still say the greatest single political disaster of the 1970s was letting Gerald Ford allow the Watergate CREEPster conspirators to scuttle away unpunished. Cheney and half of the PNAC kleptocrisy (and probably even Bush the First) would never have been allowed back in a position where they could engineer stealing the Gore election, if their early coup d’etat attempts had been read into the public records back in 1976.
David Koch
This from a guy with FIVE Vietnam draft deferments.
mark
Cheney the Triple Threat:
Fearmonger
Warmonger
Warprofiteer
The worst American in history? Certainly, the worst and most disastrous politician.
kc
Holy shit. I never thought I’d say this, but thank God for Condi Rice.
Scott S.
Someday, someone’s going to build a bar next to Dick Cheney’s grave, and they’re going to make millions of dollars…
Tone in DC
@kc:
Never imagined that she could be the voice of reason circa 2007.
Trollhattan
@Scott S.:
Name of said bar: “Undisclosed Location.”
MattF
I posted today’s Dowd column on Cheney earlier, but now it’s on topic:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/opinion/dowd-repent-dick-cheney.html?ref=opinion
And no, none of this exculpates Bush. GWB’s MO was to find someone to do the dirty work, and Cheney fit right in.
Tone in DC
@kc:
Never imagined that she could be the voice of reason circa 2007. Eesh.
gene108
As much as folks around here want put Condi down, she became what passed for a voice of reason in the Bush, Jr. administration and helped keep the crazy Cheney-Rumsfeld power axis from causing more harm.
askew
Yep, we get it. Cheney is scum and a war criminal. Anyone want to discuss what’s happening in 2013?
We’ve got 2 new Senate filibusters. Reid and Senate Dems have been rendered completely useless. Rand Paul is making himself into a folk hero by actually filibustering.
The Bipartisan background checks bill has been introduced but without Coburn.
Obama is having dinner with Senate GOPs with Graham in charge of the invite list.
House passed a draconian CR.
General Stuck
It must be a thrill a minute with the Cheney family gathered around the dining table for thanksgiving, as the only family on their block with a live turkey to be carved .
Tone in DC
Got da multiple post blues. Sorry.
ruemara
Go away, Dick Cheney. You’re evil.
Bob In Portland
Was Cheney ever involved in Watergate? I don’t remember him, just all the CIA guys who came out of the woodwork to point at Nixon.
kc
@General Stuck:
And then Cheney carves it . . . with his TEETH.
Chris
I wonder what he thinks it is that destroyed all that “authority and influence” between ’03 and ’07, given that he and Chimpy were running the show for that entire time (and more specifically, that was the era when the Cheney/Rumsfeld clique was most dominant). What could possibly have gone wrong? You’re not telling me that the occupation ruined us, destroyed our credibility and played right into the hands of our enemies, are you? That would be awkward.
YellowJournalism
Sigh. Add “Dick Cheney Researcher” just above “Peraon Who Cleans Confiscated Weapons” on my list of jobs I never, ever want to do. That job would make you suicidal or enraged enough to have a heart attack.
Never thought I’d say this, but Thank God for Condi Rice!
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
Dick Cheney may be a walking, large, disembodied anus of few peers, but I don’t have an inkling that he finds Condi a prime target because of her gender/shade of skin. She straight up cock blocked him, and he’s carrying the grudge. He seems pretty much like an equal opportunity dick.
geg6
@askew:
You mean the 2013 fact that this piece of shit posing as a human is still alive, still not imprisoned, and free to spew his poison to the lackey and complicit media who still treat him as an honored and “serious” person?
Anyway, if you don’t like the topics on this blog, there a free and wide open internet for you to discuss whatever you like.
JWL
“Someday, someone’s going to build a bar next to Dick Cheney’s grave, and they’re going to make millions of dollars…”.
I hope it’s a beer bar, because I’d certainly piss on his grave if given half a chance. Benedict Arnold was a piker compared to that sick SOB.
TenguPhule
Dick Cheney still upright and talking is proof there is no just and loving God. Evidence of Satan maybe, but definitely no God.
Kip the Wonder Rat
@askew: OK askew, let us discuss what is happening in 2013.
In 2013 we are STILL dealing with the fallout from several rounds of “let’s look forward, not backwards.” We are STILL dealing with the fallout of what happens when a large chunk of the electorate does not know about those several rounds of unmarked and certainly unpunished malfeasance. We will continue to do this into 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017…
…unless maybe, at some point, we decide to learn from history to apply that knowledge to current policymaking. This entails reminding ourselves of what happened in the past, and critically, teaching it to the huge chunk of the electorate that missed it the first time(s) around.
You appear to think that this activity is separate from dealing with current realities. The past isn’t over. It’s not even the past. This is not a difficult concept.
TenguPhule
@JWL:
Take a number and get in line after me.
Also, Dibs on running the Bar.
Trollhattan
@MattF:
Sometimes the Uber mean girl finds a fitting target; this is one of those times.
The Moar You Know
@General Stuck: I’d bet money it’s a live baby, and they use their bare hands to tear it to pieces, as jackals would.
Maude
@Trollhattan:
At that bar, when they say shot, they mean shot.
Anne Laurie
@Bob In Portland:
He was working for Donald Rumsfeld, and became WH Chief of Staff under Ford. He’s frequently talked about how Watergate “proved” that “the Executive must not be infringed” — i.e., that the takeaway for him was not “don’t commit crimes” but “don’t get caught, and if you do get caught, lie about it, and if the lies don’t work, ignore the law”. Sound familiar?
Cassidy
@askew: You could always start your own blog or ask for your money back.
The Moar You Know
@Kip the Wonder Rat: The problem is worse than you state, because the effect on the voting public – who knows crimes have been committed and then see nothing happens – is cumulative. We’re not that far away from having a society in which government – supposedly “of the people, by the people, for the people” is thought about in the same way by American citizens that Mexican citizens regard their farce of a
narcotics distribution facilitator“government”.Just Some Fuckhead
Evil Cheney Thwarted Again, Grumbles, Vows Revenge
askew
@Kip the Wonder Rat:
I don’t think that at all. I am just sick of talking about it. Nothing new has been said about it in ages and we’ve already had multiple threads about it today.
And yes, I could go somewhere else on the internet, but I can also sit here and bitch that I am sick to death of progressives being so unable to move the ball forward on anything because they are too busy re-litigating the Bush years. Progressive seem to think we should treat politics like some big academic thought exercise while conservatives act to achieve their goals. It would be nice to see progressives do something for once, instead of sitting around and talking about the past.
Cassidy
@askew: You should email Cole. All caps, exclamation points…he lives that shit.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
Their authoritah was undermined by a bunch of DFHs who questioned Cheney’s leadership and suggested that the USA shouldn’t go around blowing up brown people at random. Only by blasting the hell out of something or someone could we show that we weren’t taking that peace and love crap seriously./wingnut
TMS
Said Cheney: “I thought [destroying the reactor] would reassert the kind of authority and influence we had back in ’03 when we took down Saddam Hussein and eliminated Iraq as a potential source of WMD. Condi was on the wrong side of all those issues so we had significant issues.”..
Hey kids, next Thanksgiving, when Uncle George goes on about eyeRAQ, Saaadaaam, and DubyaEmDee, you can respectfully tell him even Dick Cheney says he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
celticdragonchick
@MattF:
Wow.
The fact that he was ordering the death of several dozen American civilians on the plane doesn’t seem to faze him one fucking bit…even if it was defensible and necessary. I would have a lot of sleepless nights if I had to give that order, and I doubt I could even remain in government service afterwards. Shotgun Dick doesn’t have those foibles that the rest of us mortal suffer from.
Jesus wept.
Private Lynndie England should not have been the one in prison. The monsters at the top who ordered her and everyone else in the uniformed services to disgrace their uniforms and honor…and then hung them out to dry… are the ones who should be in prison. Starting with this bastard.
askew
@Cassidy:
Yes, because making a couple posts complaining about the tunnel vision of progressives is identical to harassing John Cole about his blog. People here sure are oversensitive to blog criticism lately.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
I had no idea we DFHs were so powerful that we could single-handedly destroy all the authority and influence of the United States in the Middle East :D
It’s almost enough to make me wonder how it is that the Iraq War was even able to happen in the first place, what with our being so powerful and all.
Maude
@Anne Laurie:
Add to that, Reagan got away with Iran Contra.
? Martin
I never considered that Eric Cartman is directly taken from Dick Cheney, but I’m struggling to think of where there’s any notable departure.
celticdragonchick
@The Moar You Know:
Quoted for truth.
The “look forward” mindset does nothing but enable and embolden the criminals who benefit from the policy of amnesia.
Omnes Omnibus
@celticdragonchick: Lynddie England should be in prison. She just shouldn’t be alone.
MikeJ
@gene108:
Being the sanest person in the Bush administration is like being the world’s tallest midget.
TenguPhule
@? Martin:
Cartman occasionally does the right thing for the wrong reasons. Cheney has no such sympathetic quality.
celticdragonchick
@? Martin:
Eric Cartman has not accumulated a body count quite as impressive as Shotgun Dick, but the similarity of attitude and contempt is disconcerting…
Cassidy
@askew: No, actually we’re just annoyed with the sense of entitlement that people display when the FPers aren’t writing about what they want them to write about. It’s whiny so we mock. You should write Cole about it.
Jay S
Can somebody refresh my memory about this. I was pretty aware of what was happening in 1976, but I’m not sure I remember anything that I would describe as a coup d’etat from the right.
Tonal Crow
But Ford said it was necessary for America to “heal”. And what happened was that the skin healed over the Nixonite infection, which then burrowed deep into the body politic’s muscle, bone, and brain, to emerge in full deadly flower as Fox “News”, Dubya, the Court that installed him, the Tea Party, and the rest of the modern GOP fifth column.
askew
@Cassidy:
I was mocking all progressives for their tunnel vision not just this blog’s FPers. And I’d say you are showing much more entitlement by basically telling me to get off this blog or shut up. Last time I checked, you weren’t in charge here.
celticdragonchick
@Omnes Omnibus:
Her crime was being a teenager E-3 in the wrong place. The ability of a junior enlisted soldier to disobey an order based on legality is practically nil. She and the rest of her unit were given orders to do things to the prisoners by superiors, and their ability to contravene those orders during a state of war simply did not exist (I was given the standard lecture on the duty to disobey an unlawful order in Basic Training, and the drill instructors made it pretty damned clear that there was no such thing as an unlawful order)
Of course, being “hicks” from West Virgina, it was simplicity itself to flush them down the drain and pretend the whole torture interrogation regime was a bad hillbilly joke.
The MP unit never had a fucking chance. Refusing the orders would likely have led to some form of prosecution on bullshit charges…and the army is nothing if not good at cooking those up.
Violet
Related: Heard Jeffrey Toobin interviewed by Terry Gross today on Fresh Air. At one point she said he had claimed that Sandra Day O’Connor “regretted” her vote in Bush v Gore. She said that she had interviewed O’Connor and asked her about it and that O’Connor said she hadn’t said she regretted it.
Toobin replied that she wouldn’t say it publicly, but that what resulted–Iraq, Terri Schaivo, etc. were horrifying to her and that she sure did regret her vote.
Thought it kind of interesting, from a Village perspective–hanging the Bush admin disaster on her shoulders and putting words in her mouth, when she herself, when asked directly about it, did not say she regretted it.
celticdragonchick
@Tonal Crow:
This is actually the real story of America for the last third of the Twentieth Century. A cabal of embittered technocrats and politicians are cast aside in criminal disgrace, but are allowed to remain free and plan their revenge in the most grandiose terms possible…and actually succeed.
Cassidy
@askew: You should write Cole an email and detail all the problems with the FPers not talking about what you think is appropriate. Make sure to mention that I’m making fun of you. He loves hearing that stuff.
celticdragonchick
@askew:
Be sure you also call him a grouchy, drunk, old fuck who needs to do more yoga. He appreciates the thought more then you know.
Trust me.
Chris
@celticdragonchick:
There is absolutely zero accountability for anyone at the top anymore. I wish it were only in politics, but that story from a couple of weeks ago about how we’d decided not to prosecute a group of top banksters? Same basic story. The ethic has been internalized for all kinds of authority, that the Very Important People are just Too Damn Important to be subjected to the same rules that govern the rest of us.
(There’s probably an argument to be made that the niceties of the law only apply to middle class people, just in general, not just in this society. If you’re rich enough, you can get away with damn near anything, and if you’re poor enough, people can get away with doing damn near anything to you).
celticdragonchick
@Chris:
Exactly. I assume you read about the decision to not prosecute HSBC on fraud, money laundering and terrorism support charges?
Good times, good times.
TheronWare
May the fate of Prometheus meet this evil bastard at the gates of hell.
Chris
@celticdragonchick:
That’s the one, thanks! I couldn’t remember the name of the conglomerate involved, but that was it.
It really says something about the state of the country when even in the middle of the war on terror, in the aftermath of 9/11, you still can’t prosecute big businessmen even for something as blatant as terrorism support.
PeakVT
@Violet: I heard that, too. I don’t think it’s appropriate for Toobin to attribute anything to O’Connor without some kind of supporting evidence when she’s said the opposite publicly. She ought to regret it, as should her four co-conspirators. But does she? We can’t just take Toobin’s word for it, since he seems to be basing it on circumstantial evidence.
The Moar You Know
@Tonal Crow: I think he really believed this. He’d been nothing more than an unimaginative useful stooge all his life with no real responsibility, but he wasn’t an amoral psycho like all the Nixon people. I think he went to his grave not realizing that those jerks were all insane predators.
He got put into a situation where he was way over his head. And he reverted to form and he did what he was told, just like he always had, keeping on all the Nixon folks and pardoning the criminal-in-chief. And planting the seeds of America’s destruction.
History is replete with examples of “the right guy at the right time” because we like those stories. We might learn more from stories about “the wrong guy at the right time”, which Ford assuredly was. A president with more imagination and force of character, Republican or Democrat, would have thrown Nixon’s ass in the slammer without a second thought and asserted the primal principle that “America is a country of laws” in a way that could not be mistaken.
We’d all be living in a much different world had that happened.
the Conster
If I was the family of that poor bastard who got swallowed alive by the earth last week, I’d read this article and know, for a fact, that there is no justice or a merciful god.
raven
@the Conster: You had some notion otherwise?
Patricia Kayden
Not feeling sympathetic towards Condoleeza though. You lay down with dogs, you get fleas. She supported Bush no matter what he did and even supported Romneybot 2.0 (spoke at the RNC Convention last year).
I wonder how she had so much power that she could stop Cheney from doing what he wanted with Syria.
srv
Look, when she does a McNamara and asks forgiveness for getting a few 100K people killed, I’ll support visitation rights for her gulag cell at Gitmo.
Until then, the least worst of the monsters is still a monster.
And BTW, the reactor still got bombed by US made fighters, bombs and intelligence support. A tiff about whether ‘Mericuns were in the cockpits is making a mountain out of a molehill.
Cheney is just looking for someone to take a fall. Next up, sad faces for My Lai/Iran Contra principle Colin Powell.
raven
@The Moar You Know: “He’d been nothing more than an unimaginative useful stooge all his life with no real responsibility,”
That’s bullshit.
kc
@Cassidy:
Get a ROOM, you two.
Mandalay
@Ann Laurie
What is the evidence for that extraordinary claim?
Rice overrode Cheney’s recommendation. Surely that is sufficient to explain his hostility without alleging that racism and/or sexism are relevant.
sophronia
When Cheney finally dies, it needs to be a national day of celebration.
I’m always baffled by the people who claim that GW Bush’s presidency was unsuccessful. From here it looks like he and his fellow travelers accomplished pretty much everything they set out to do: they made themselves and their wealthy friends in the defense and banking industry rich beyond their wildest dreams and untouchable by the law, and meanwhile they weakened the U.S. government to the point where it’s withering away.
Oh, I guess they didn’t get to blow up some reactor in Syria. Everything else, though, was a smashing success.
srv
@Patricia Kayden:
W was slow, but by 2006 he had figured out Cheney had ratfucked his legacy and was looking for a way out. That’s also why Rummy had to go – he wanted to gtf of Iraq by then and that wasn’t going to look great on W’s resume.
So a third way to ‘victory’ had to be found.
Todd
@Tonal Crow:
He may have been basically right. In hindsight, it would have been the proverbial straw, to see a president who came off such a sound victory wind up a convicted felon so shortly after the VP. Considering wed just come out of the disaster of Vietnam, were still locked in an arms race with the USSR and were just coming to grips with the postwar oil shocks and stagflation, it probably would have been too much. Still, Ford should have cleaned out the hyena cage of the underlings.
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for the Politburo discussions on what Watergate meant as it unfolded.
Omnes Omnibus
@celticdragonchick: Even granting everything you said (and I would dispute some of the details), she wasn’t innocent. Is her degree of guilt less than that of many others, yes. But she wasn’t innocent.
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
It was 2007. After the 2006 electoral fiasco, the Cheney/Rumsfeld wing of the administration, which had been controlling foreign policy so far, suddenly found itself in disfavor. Condi reaped the benefits.
I suppose I just answered my own question about how Cheney conceives the 2003-2007 “decline.”
bemused
@celticdragonchick:
Sen Grassley loudly complained but I don’t remember much outrage from other Republicans or maybe I missed that.
celticdragonchick
@The Moar You Know:
I have no doubt on that.
Not sure that will stand up to examination, even if he wasn’t really prepared or qualified to be POTUS. He wasn’t stupid by any means and he took the hit (he knew that the pardon doomed any chance he had of being elected to the office on his own rights) because he believed he had to protect the integrity of the office of the President. That decision was praised for quite a few years, and it will be vigorously re-examined by historians long after we are dead. It really does look like a monumental mistake now, albeit one that took decades to come to fruition.
Most people agree that he was a decent person if nothing else.
Who the fuck could have predicted that the Watergate crew and the rest of the Nixon Cabal (including Pat Buchanan) would absolutely take every possible wrong lesson from what happened and then use that experience (and our cultural amnesia) to nearly wreck 200 years of democratic tradition? It sounds like something from the Borgias in late Renaissance Italy, for Pete’s sake!
Mandalay
@Patricia Kayden:
She didn’t initially, and my recollections of her after 9/11 were that she was a lightweight, and way out of her depth.
But as things spiraled out of control I think even Dubya realized that Cheney and Rumsfeld were the crazies, and then Condi had his ear.
(Those photos she took while Dubya sucked her toes had no effect on the outcome of anything.)
Mnemosyne
@sophronia:
Ever heard the proverb, “Be careful what you wish for”? They accomplished everything they wanted in the same way that Midas accomplished his dream of being able to turn everything around him into gold, including the food he needed to survive.
Violet
@sophronia:
Will he die? Can he die? What could kill him?
MikeBoyScout
Two confessions:
1) On September 12, 2001 as a recently separated veteran I met with some shipmates of mine; both Active and Inactive. We were discussing what we could & should do. My input was that despite the inexperience (and obvious stupidity) of the CINC, we would be alright because of the experienced DICK Cheney.
2) Knowing now what I did not know then, and having witnessed what we have all witnessed, if fate ever offered me the
chanceopportunity to deliver the justice rightfully due to DICK, I would administer it with gusto and without a moment’s hesitation or a milligram of regret at what the consequences could be for me.For both of these, I am sorry.
Chris
@celticdragonchick:
Also, I doubt if anyone realized that the fall of Nixon would’ve cleared the way for Reagan, who’d inherited the far right/Goldwater wing of the party, to take power. The reason I bring that up is that that was going to happen no matter what happened to Nixon, so I’m not sure actually imprisoning Nixon would’ve prevented the obscenities of the last few decades. Would it have encouraged Reagan & Co to tread more carefully? Possible, but not certain, IMO. (Not that it shouldn’t have happened anyway).
celticdragonchick
@Violet:
Holy water, stake through the heart, silver, being touched by a unicorn, being shot into the center of a star.
I’m guessing a drone strike would not do the trick. He would pick the hellfire missile up with his artificial, bloodless claw and dismiss it with his trademark sneer before calling the drone pilot “unhelpful and incompetent”.
Jewish Steel
@Scott S.: “We’re going to need a bigger dance floor.”
Elizabelle
What, no thread on the Randibuster?
Omnes Omnibus
@celticdragonchick:
He does not have a heart. He has a mechanical pump.
Jay B.
I thought [destroying the reactor] would reassert the kind of authority and influence we had back in ’03 when we took down Saddam Hussein and eliminated Iraq as a potential source of WMD. Condi was on the wrong side of all those issues so we had significant issues.
Potential source of WMD? THAT’S why we’re still there? That’s why we tortured tons of fucking people? A potential source? Why is this man walking around free? And it’s total horseshit that Rice was in any way opposed to taking down Hussein — she lied repeatedly about the aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds and every other fucking thing those jackals lied about.
@askew:
It would be nice to see progressives do something for once, instead of sitting around and talking about the past.
The past isn’t even past. Everything we’re dealing with now is based in the Bush era. Literally everything.
And what are “progressives” supposed to accomplish anyway? The President can’t even get an appeals court judge to a vote in the Senate. His stated economic goals are tax increases along with intensely awful cuts to “entitlements” — and he’s the one we voted for and nearly everyone here defends with laughable gusto. Nothing can be done until 2014 with a nominal chance to pick up a House (which, of course, will be impossible if Obama is successful in his “chained CPI” scheme to fuck the elderly– but since the GOP are economic terrorists, they have NO IDEA what a gift the Administration is dying to give them) and even then, the idiotic talk of “spending cuts” will continue, along with minority rule in a deeply dysfunctional Senate that other progressive allies have helped enabled by passing on filibuster reform. Until then, what? Oppose Keystone? Whoops! Come out in favor of Medicare and SSI without “strengthening” them, but rather increasing funding for them? Ha! America is more liberal than even liberals think, but we have one political party that argues against itself, doesn’t listen to the only people who have been right for the past 12 years and another party that seems only to want to see the whole thing burn.
celticdragonchick
@Chris:
The counterfactual history here is interesting,,,and it is entirely possible (based on what we already know of what Buchanan et al though about Watergate…didn’t go far enough..needs more gusto!) that prosecuting Nixon could have led to a neo con revolt much, much earlier(in the 80’s), although Rumsfeld never got along with Reagan.
celticdragonchick
@Omnes Omnibus:
I concede the point.
Mandalay
@PeakVT:
Whoa! Hold it right there.
Suppose Toobin is telling the truth, and I suspect that he is. What then is the justification for suppressing the information? Professional courtesy?
It is entirely appropriate for Toobin or anyone else to publicly dispute what someone stated privately unless they had explicitly stated that the information was off the record. Consider what happened to General McChrystal. Should his comments have been witheld as well?
O’Connor should not state stuff in interviews that she does not want to be repeated. And if Toobin is making stuff up then she should call him a liar. Either way I suspect Toobin will find he gets granted fewer interviews in future.
Kip the Wonder Rat
@askew: So you’re assuming that progressives just sit around and talk about the past.
How old are you?
Have you ever done more than one thing in a day?
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
No, he has a physical heart now.
Think of the poor family that received that news — not only did their loved one die (probably in a horrible accident), but the heart that they generously donated went to Dick fucking Cheney.
It almost makes you reconsider your organ donor card.
MikeBoyScout
@84 Jay B.:
Because we the people not only allow it, our President and his Justice Department believes we should not look back. DICK walks free along with the banksters.
And so shall we leave this debt of justice to our progeny. What could possibly go wrong?
Jewish Steel
@Omnes Omnibus: Not no more, he don’t.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Jesus wept.
@Jewish Steel: … and then He raged.
Don’t the fucking protocols for recipients require that the person at least have a human soul? I am not asking them to judge whether someone is a good person or not. Just verify actual humanity.
Southern Beale
I daresay our US media won’t bother to report on this, but thank God for the BBC:
Same as it ever was.
chopper
@Scott S.:
fixt.
Dick Cheney's New Heart
For God’s sake, please, kill me.
handsmile
@sophronia:
“When Cheney finally dies, it needs to be a national day of celebration.”
It will be for many, and on that blessed day, the anthem sung should be Elvis Costello’s “Tramp the Dirt Down.” (I still choke up every time I listen to this song, written for the despicable Margaret Thatcher; EC’s introduction to the song expresses precisely my feelings about Cheney and Bush.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-BZIWSI5UQ
MikeBoyScout
@94 chopper:
Believe me Chopper, when that SOB is in the ground I will be leading a parade of widows and orphans to that spot to pay the disrespect that is due.
Jewish Steel
@handsmile: That’s what my notional DJ would be spinning ’round the clock.
I love uilleann pipes anyway.
Omnes Omnibus
@handsmile: It really is the only song that fits. I have, in the past, taken a couple of runs at Americanizing the lyrics in anticntly worded viciousness.ipation of the End of Cheney, but I have not come up with anything worthwhile. I am not able to match EC’s level of elegantly worded viciousness.
Maude
@Mnemosyne:
OT A man was killed by a lion in a private CA park east of Fresno. He got into the cage. Law Enforcement shot lion.
Mandalay
@Chris:
You have a real point. The only “famous” financial people I can think of who have gone to prison recently are Allen Stanford and Bernie Madoff, who both committed the unpardonable crime of stealing from other rich people.
Anyone else?
Dick Cheney's New Heart
@handsmile: That’s what the DJ will be spinning round the clock on my notional dance floor.
I love uilleann pipes anyway.
Kip the Wonder Rat
@Violet: Actually, she has stated, in public, that she regrets her involvement in the coup, and she’s said it more than once and to large groups (e.g., American College of Trial Lawyers). For whatever reason, she apparently won’t say it “on the record” to reporters, as if her comments to large groups at paid speaking engagements are somehow “off the record.”
She’ll probably end up on the second or third circle of hell, shaking her fists at Tricky Dicks Nixon and Cheney, and Vlad the Impaler in the seventh circle.
Do I have that order of circles correct?
dance around in your bones
Ok, I got about 20 seconds into the video when Cheney stumbled over the “What is your main fault?” question, and pulled a Bush re: “What mistakes have you made?” blank. Gah. The man (actually both of them) just makes my skin crawl.
I’m sure this point has been made already; haven’t read any comments yet. Real life keeps intruding on my Balloon Juice time.
eta: “What’s your favorite virtue in your friends?”
“Shooting them in the face and making them apologize to me”.
Also – Wish he had stayed on the Snake River fly-fishing for the last 3 decades.
Chris
@Mandalay:
I never thought of it that way. Yep, that’s why Madoff went to jail. He stole from other rich people. Obvious really.
arguingwithsignposts
I only read halfway through the comments so far, but I think it would be really instructive to just have an “All the President’s Men” social network graph of where all the Nixon WH people ended up. They lasted over 40 years and they’re still polluting our politics, and spawning third generations now.
zimmerman
Dylan’s “Masters of War” is the song that makes me think of Cheney, Rummy, Bush, et al. “I’ll stand over your grave until I’m sure that you’re dead…”
SRW1
@General Stuck:
What you mean “live turkey to be carved”. In the Cheney household the Thanksgiving day table is adorned with rat cages, containing two of them rodents per family member. The sucking sounds when the Cheneys tug in after Dick has delivered the bat vows are ear-deafening.
Kyle
Since Iraq had none, and no capability to build nukes, it is equally true that Cheney eliminated the threat to America of sharks flying helicopters. All for $2 trillion and a hundred thousand lives.
the Conster
@handsmile:
Someone somewhere on the internet once proposed this song to celebrate Darth’s death, and it makes me laugh every.single.time. It’s properly celebratory.
Omnes Omnibus
@the Conster: A different take. I find it interesting.
Kip the Wonder Rat
@PeakVT: She has said it. I was there. But then, I’m not even as credible as Toobin. Right?
the Conster
@Omnes Omnibus:
It will be a happy day for me, and I will dance to this song as if I were dancing on his grave.
Omnes Omnibus
@the Conster: I will say this for Cheney, he has put a number of people in touch with their inner grave dancer.
PeakVT
@Mandalay: I don’t know what is going on. @Kip the Wonder Rat may be right, in which case Toobin was justified in saying what he did. But here’s what sparked the question:
PeakVT
@Kip the Wonder Rat: Since you’re some commenter on a blog, what exactly do you think your credibility should be?
Asshole.
Mandalay
@PeakVT:
That was a very lawyerly comment by O’Connor, and also a pretty weak denial.
I’ll listen to the interview. Gross is a truly awful interviewer (“..uhmmm….like….do you know what I mean?…”), but she gets some great guests.
gene108
@MikeBoyScout:
Has any President gone back and investigated the actions of his predecessor for crimes, when the predecessor was not prosecuted during his administration?
People make it sound like it ain’t no-thing for an incoming President to launch a criminal investigation into the actions of his predecessor; like it’s something that’s happened 43 times before in American history before Obama got sworn in.
Just sayin’ an incoming President launching a criminal investigation into the previous Administration would not only be a big fucking deal, but it would be a first in our history and would cause some serious fucking problems with regards to the peaceful transition of power, we’ve enjoyed for two hundred years.
gene108
@gene108:
Just wanted to add the invasion of Iraq, in 2003, wasn’t the first time a President “stretched the truth” to drag America into a war.
The Mexican-American war, Spanish-American war and Vietnam all come to mind as wars we got into by some less than true claims that got public sentiment behind going to war.
dance around in your bones
@the Conster:
Gads, the late 70’s were so great. NO one was afraid to look ridiculous. It’s remarkably freeing.
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ok, this is funny. My inner grave dancer has been activated and is ready to deploy!
SiubhanDuinne
@TheronWare:
And soon, please. Time’s a-wastin’.
MikeBoyScout
@118 gene108:
Yes. You want a list?
And let’s not limit justice to previous entitled rulers to only the USA. Precedent is important, but it is not sufficient.
gene, in the Intel community we have a term for what some call the curse of ‘good intentions’; Blow Back.
JUSTICE is the cause we demand so that lessons are learned.
handsmile
@Southern Beale:
We’ll have no disagreement whatsoever on the US corporate media’s likely tepid response to the Iraq inspector general report, but I must note that the BBC itself was a reliable cheerleader for the Iraq War and its slavish devotion to Tony Blair continued throughout his reign as prime minister (an ardor similar to that of most of the US media for Bush for much of his concurrent reign.)
Its editorial emasculation following the findings of the 2003 Hutton Inquiry (on the death of British weapons inspector David Kelly and the “sexed up” ‘September dossier’) and more recent punishing budget cuts and staff reductions has rendered the BBC now but a feeble version of its once formidable reputation. Also, BBC America news broadcasts have become almost risibly neo-conservative and corporatist (e.g., Katty Kay, George Alagiah).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutton_Inquiry
Both the Independent and the Guardian are more robust journalistic enterprises at this time, with far greater integrity in their reporting.
One small, perhaps even trivial, detail from the BBC report you linked to illustrates my current disaffection. The one US elected official quoted in the article was Republican senator Bob Corker, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Wouldn’t committee chairman Democrat Robert Menendez be the more suitable choice for a comment? Like its US media counterparts, it would seem the BBC prefers GOP points of view.
Svensker
@Jewish Steel:
b
Holy moly. Had never heard that term. Googled and came up with this, which is simply awesome.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Interesting. I’ve never heard that particular variant. My version of the Midas story is that he embraced his beloved daughter and turned her to gold.
Doesn’t much matter, the moral is the same, but it’s fascinating to me the different twists and turns our myths and legends and folktales take, presumably reflective of the dominant culture of the moment.
(I see I’ve wandered seriously O/T again. Sorry.)
the Conster
@dance around in your bones:
I am so grateful to have been awake and alive in the late 60s through the 70s. Great music. Just listening to Parliament Funkadelic now, and Friends of Distinction.
SiubhanDuinne
@handsmile:
In the best of all possible worlds, Thatcher and Cheney would die on the same day.
For all the obvious reasons, yes, of course; but also too, the MSM would be going nuts trying to figure out to cover such competing breaking stories of profound interest and impact, and we would at least double the number of BJ threads and comments for a while.
PROFIT!!WIN!!dance around in your bones
@Jewish Steel:
Are bagpipes one of the most weird instruments ever conceived? Or just one of them?
People used to have a lot of time on their hands back in the day, no? “Hey! let’s use a goat stomach and attach pipes to it to make weird noises!”
I guess it’s no weirder than buzkashi. Which I have witnessed many times, but not in the ‘takes a week to play over multiple miles format’. Just in the stadium where many years later the Taliban executed people. Never saw that coming.
Ok, I’m OT again. So shoot me. I need to eat dinner.
Narcissus
Dude is powered by pure hate.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Ironically, that’s the “happy ending” version, where Midas is so upset at his curse that the gods take pity on him and lift it.
The original downer ending is that he accidentally turns his daughter into gold AND he starves to death. The Greek gods were not ones to fuck around with when it came to wishes and curses. They would turn you into a tree to “save” you.
Mnemosyne
@dance around in your bones:
Hey, it’s better than the other things Scotsmen would get up to when they were left alone with the sheep for months on end.
I’m just sayin’.
SiubhanDuinne
@Maude:
I’m sorry the lion was shot.
However.
Mnemosyne
@MikeBoyScout:
I would like the list, please.
Note gene108’s parameters that presidents who were already under investigation/criminal indictment before the end of their term do not count. We’re only counting presidents who had no criminal charges against them before they left office, but were investigated and criminally charged by the president who replaced them in office.
ETA: And, yes, we’re talking about US presidents here, because we’re discussing US politics. Telling us that the president of Upper Moldovia was investigated after leaving office says nothing about US politics.
Mnemosyne
@Maude:
What a dumbass. Poor lion.
Fortunately, I’m pretty far south of there, so my biggest lion danger is the one living in Griffith Park, and I don’t mean at the zoo.
SiubhanDuinne
@SRW1:
I won’t miss Dick or Lynne or Liz, not one little teeny iota.
Mary Cheney seems as though she might be a decent person, but she’s probably never had much chance to test the hypothesis.
lojasmo
@celticdragonchick:
She was in her mid twenties when those pictures were taken.
Also, every soldier should damn well know there IS such a thing as an unlawful order.
I was younger than Lyndie when i was in the service, and I damn well knew it.
dance around in your bones
@the Conster:
Oh gads, I love Parliament/Funkadelic/George Clinton!
Bring The Funk!
The Mothership!
SiubhanDuinne
Potential?
PoTENtial?
POFUCKINGTENTIAL??
dance around in your bones
@Mnemosyne:
Hey, they were just trying to help the sheep through the fence, right?
handsmile
@SiubhanDuinne:
Spoken like a true Voltairean!
As we but inhabit this low and mean world, I will be deliriously joyful on whatever day those two malefactors are finally dispatched. (Sadly as an atheist, I cannot dream of divine justice.)
Of more immediate concern and import, I do hope your own health has improved. And sufficiently so that you were able to withstand (I mean, enjoy) the many, many hours of the Met Live’s Parsifal broadcast. :)
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Gotta love ’em.
And thanks for the “happy ending” clarification of the daughter version.
SiubhanDuinne
@handsmile:
Cultivating my garden :-)
Yes, I made it (quite happily) through the almost six hours of Parsifal the other day. And my health seems to be back to whatever passes for “normal” with me, except for some lingering tenderness in the ankle that got WRACKED UP WHEN THE HOSPITAL’S WHEELCHAIR MALFUNCTIONED!! Oh, sorry, excuse me for yelling.
You are very kind to inquire. Hope you, too, are well.
trollhattan
@handsmile:
Richard Thompson’s “Sam Jones” might be likewise apt.
Me name is Sam Jones and it’s bones me occupation
Chuck your old hocks out for my consideration
Thirty years a bone man, up and down the nation
Sam Jones deliver them bones
I’ve been among the shamrock and I’ve been among the thistle
I like it all picked over, clean as a whistle
No sign of meat on, no sign of gristle
Sam Jones deliver them bones
I’ve seen battlefields white with human ivory
Noble dukes and princes stripped of flesh and finery
When the crows have done their job, they say that’s the time for me
Sam Jones deliver them bones
And I even dream of bones when I’m lying very ill
Roomsfull of skeletons a-dancing the quadrille
Rows and rows of skulls singing Blueberry Hill
Sam Jones deliver them bones
And if you’re unburied, the likes of me will find you
You’re no good to worms, but you might become the finest glue
We’ll grind you up and spread you out as fertiliser, too
Sam Jones deliver them bones
And I’ve got a lorry, it’s me own boneshaker
Where’s there old knuckle joints I’ll be the undertaker
I’ll come calling ’round just like the butcher and the baker
Sam Jones deliver them bones
Me name is Sam Jones and it’s bones me occupation
Chuck your old hocks out for my consideration
Thirty years a bone man, up and down the nation
Sam Jones deliver them bones
Oh, Sam Jones deliver them bones
Sam Jones deliver them bones
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
I’d like this list, too. I don’t know enough to confidently state it’s never happened, but if it has I’d like to know about it for the historical context.
Del
You know, out of all of that, I’m still stuck on the fact that the Vice president was the one giving orders to shoot down the plane on 9/11 and act as CiC. Did I miss the part of Junior’s presidency where he was enfeebled or otherwise incapacitated? Wasn’t that HIS fucking job? I’ve always though Bush was a puppet and I swear, every time this walking cesspool talks, I believe it more.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
To thinking that posturing, effete Cheney was once viewed as an adult.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Chenny has to have a messed up head and full of self doubt to talk like this. Even Bush Jr will admit off the record he fucked up. I will bet after Cheny dies it will come out he was crying himself to sleep every night or something like it.
gene108
@MikeBoyScout:
Yes. I want a list.
I can’t think of an instance, when a newly sworn in President prosecuted a former President and high-level members of his Cabinet for criminal.
Taylor/Filmore didn’t go after Polk for whatever flimsy reason was had to launch the Mexican-American war.
Carter didn’t go after Ford/Nixon.
Nixon didn’t go after LBJ.
Jefferson didn’t go after Adams.
Jackson didn’t go after JQA.
Hayes didn’t kick up new investigations against Grant and his Administration.
Do you honestly think the next time there’s a Republican President, following a Democratic President, the Republican wouldn’t be under pressure to “stick it to” the Democrat, because Obama went after Bush & Co.?
Republicans went after Clinton, because they were pissed that Nixon was called out over Watergate and Reagan was “dragged through the mud” over Iran-Contra and they wanted to embarrass a Democratic President.
You want blow back, investigating Bush & Co. would kick off a full blown Republican jihad against any and every Democrat in office; it’d be asymmetric warfare because Democrats aren’t wired to chuck the rule of law aside as quickly as Republicans to advance their agenda and take down their opposition.
Be careful what you wish for, like someone pointed out up thread King Midas got what he wanted.
Darkrose
@Mnemosyne: I kind of liked his fate in the Percy Jackson books, after Gaia lets all the baddies of Greek mythology out of Tartarus. He seems like a harmless old guy, until he hears the “happy ending” version of the story, laughs and says his daughter’s quieter this way.
(For all that they’re YA books, I really do recommend both the Greek and the Egyptian series from him. He’s an engaging writer, and he doesn’t shy away from dealing with difficult and complicated issues.)
ottercliff
Monster. What a terrible waste of some person’s generous gift of a heart.