It appears now the press is camping out at Cheney’s house in order to find the next quote to undermine current policy:
On the eve of the unveiling of the nation’s new Afghanistan policy, former Vice President Dick Cheney slammed President Barack Obama for projecting “weakness” to adversaries and warned that more workaday Afghans will side with the Taliban if they think the United States is heading for the exits.
In a 90-minute interview at his suburban Washington house, Cheney said the president’s “agonizing” about Afghanistan strategy “has consequences for your forces in the field.”
If you read on, he even gets to the “I don’t think he likes America” schtick.
ploeg
We can always give Cheney the opportunity he never had as a young lad, issue him an M4 and send him out.
Second thought, never mind, he’d get his squad killed and shoot his eye out.
Upper West
Further evidence of what an idiot Jon Meachem is.
Zifnab
To be fair, the media couldn’t get enough of Al Gore well into 2001 and 2002. Why, I remember the former Vice President plastered on every cable news outlet and Sunday Morning talk show all through the run up to the Iraq War. The news media was simply obsessed with… oh, no wait. I’m thinking of American Idol.
Wilson Heath
And none of these consequences were already rolling out prior to January ’09 on account of any of your Dick moves? Right.
If Obama fails to fix a Bush-Cheney fuck-up, that doesn’t transfer ownership of the fuck-up to him. Sorry, Dick.
geg6
When will this evil fuck die already?
He is the best evidence that there is no god or, if there is, he/she/it is not benevolent or worth any sort of reverence.
I hate that mother fucker with a passion that burns.
soonergrunt
I find it sickly hilarious that Dick Cheney, of all people who never saw the forces in the field, about which he never cared for more than one cares for a wrench or a screwdriver, has any concern about the forces in the field.
All of this posturing by him seems to me to be the kind of thing one might do if one was trying to set the narrative that he made policy decisions and didn’t run the White House as a criminal enterprise. Just in case some US Attorney decides to get frisky and enforce the law, you know.
Senyordave
The Dr. Strangelove image of Cheney when he was in the Wheelchair seems more and more appropriate. This is an EVIL MAN. He actively works to undermine a president’s policy.
Cheney is the epitome of a politician who puts his own self-interest above the country. I know it’s too much to expect, but it would be nice to see a GOP politician tell him to shut his mouth, and go back to shooting old men in the face.
dmsilev
It’s OK. Soon, the GOP will have a new leader, one who truly embodies all of their ideals.
-dms
Keith
And nothing says strength like a guy whose pacemaker battery goes out every few years.
John Ball
And once again, the Great White Scowl of the West shares with us his bountiful wisdom, that the New Guys is Doing It Wrong.
Honestly, they could just put up a photograph, read the same quote over and over again, and the effect would be about the same.
JenJen
Well, Karl Rove says he will be the first to stand and applaud the President if he really is escalating troop deployment to Afghanistan.
If that isn’t the biggest clue yet that we’re screwed, I don’t know what would be.
dmsilev
@Senyordave:
I got more of a Blofeld vibe from that image. Just give him the white fluffy cat, and it’d be a perfect match.
-dms
gnomedad
Some confusion here on the job responsibilities of “reporter” vs. “Cheney’s personal stenographer”.
Persia
Having said all that, having one of the least popular people in the United States denouncing your policy might not be bad news for Barack Obama.
drag0n
It’s called coming up with a “plan” Dick. Something you shitheads were never capable of doing.
John Ball
Hey, Cheney was great at coming up with plans. The problem was they all looked like this…
1. Invade
2. ????
3. PROFIT!
Brick Oven Bill
The Russians were not weak as they retreated in late summer before Napoleon. Napoleon took their bait and General Winter polished him off.
Same thing in Afghanistan. Just pull out and cut off aid. This would be a sign of strength. They will consume themselves. But Obama is not strong enough to embrace this winning strategy because of his underlying personal insecurities, rooted in his abandonment by two fathers and his own mother.
Now let us consider lies. Cheney was expressing an opinion, not a lie. His opinion is likely based in the fact that ‘The Taliban’ (A group of guys who want to live an Islamic life) previously succeeded. This is a rational opinion.
This is in contrast with the Afghan Constitution (‘Islam Shall Be The Law of The Land’), which our men are fighting and dying for, which will not succeed, as the Great Satan is backing it.
This war is retarded.
SGEW
Actually, nowadays, philosophically speaking, I find Dick Cheney to be kind of fascinating. As a sort of real-life thought-experiment.
Is Dick Cheney an historically typical tyrant, merely criminally deranged, or empirical evidence of evil in the material world? Are these separate categories superfluous? Discuss.
The Grand Panjandrum
Boy, didn’t see this one coming. Cheney criticizing the President as he is about to explain his new Afghanistan policy. Shocking. Almost as shocking as Goldman Sachs employees requesting concealed carry permits. No one could have seen that coming either.
moe99
Sully was right.
Brick Oven Bill
Here are examples of lies:
‘I will have no lobbyists in my Administration.’
‘I will post all legislation on the Internet for five days before it is signed.’
‘If you make under $250,000 a year, I will not increase your taxes.’
‘There is nowhere I would rather be on my birthday than Lansing Michigan.’ .
‘Harry, I have a gift.’
arguingwithsignposts
More column space? It’s politico, which is just pixels. Cheney and the Politico should just die already.
bago
Cheney only failed to get Osama and the Taliban for 8 years. The new guy has only had 10 months or so. We should respect Cheney’s commentary on this. After all, he’s an experienced failure, and knows of what he speaks.
arguingwithsignposts
@Brick Oven Bill:
Oh, by the way. Fuck off BoB. have some pie.
PeakVT
Cheney can go die in a firefight.
Scott
There are going to be so many people pissing on Cheney’s grave when he dies, they’re going to have to make it a Superfund site.
Hell, someone’s gonna be able to open a bar called the Cheney Pisser outside the cemetery selling nothing but cheap watered-down beer, and they’ll become millionaires in weeks…
SGEW
Additionally: Is Brick Oven Bill an archetypical troll/spoof (aka, “why the internets can’t have nice things”), merely criminally deranged, or proof that someone has created a Turing-level comment-bot?
Also: It kills me to say it, but I tentatively agree with B.O.B.’s specific visceral conclusion (viz., the Afghanistan occupation is not a very good long-term idea), even though I vociferously condemn his batshit reasoning, his policy implications, and his specific use of certain language.
gypsy howell
What’s he bitching about? Isn’t Obama going to escalate the war just like they want him to?
Don’t worry Dick. We ain’t leaving. Not for a long, long time. There’s still money to be profiteered over there, and all you douchebag politicians and war-mongers are going to get your piece of the action.
jrg
Yeah, because tough talk, swagger, and quick, from-the-gut decision making worked so well for us in Iraq.
Cheney is a complete sociopath, whose 8 years in the VP office were marked by epic failure. Why does anyone treat him like he has a shred of credibility?
Autboy
since vietnam the “image” of power and the ‘messages’ we send with our actions have mattered far more to these fascist hawks than the realities of politics and combat on the ground. It is all about PR. and it presumes we know how anyone interprets any of our “messages”. The message of Iraq/Afghan, as far as I am concerned, is that America is a stupid, belligerent country that refuses to stop rushing into unwinnable wars and ruining itself politically and financially.
JGabriel
JenJen:
Bill Kristol standing up applauding. And predicting success.
.
JohnR
BOB: “The Russians were not weak as they retreated in late summer before Napoleon. Napoleon took their bait and General Winter polished him off.”
Bill, have you ever actually read anything more than comic books about the campaign in Russia? No offense meant, of course!
ellaesther
@Persia: There you go — the upside! I think you’re right about this. The people who already agree with Cheney aren’t going to become Obama lovers anytime soon anyway, and the folks who don’t agree with Cheney? Voted his policies out of office a year ago.
John Ball
Yeah. “We should go away so the heathens can all kill each other” is a–flawed statement. To put it mildly.
As for BoB–I suspect real BoB is a criminally deranged wingnut, while the various fake BoBs are regular posters trolling for a lark. The problem is telling which is which can be quite difficult.
Senyordave
Looked at the comments at Politico, and I kind of liked this one. This one is short and says it all:
Are you f’ing kidding me. Go sink your teeth into more babies.
ksmiami
Wait – As much as I think Afghanistan is a tribal, FUBAR shithole, I do think sending some men and women in to basically spy and seal off the Afghani border makes some sense and I think we really do have to care and make some effort to ensure that nuclear weapons in pakistan do not fall into the wrong hands. I believe in my heart and head that Obama has come to this conclusion and that it was not easy and will not be popular, but it is right. I have a client who heads the US-India PAC and it is good to see Obama recognize the importance of India in helping us achieve stability in the region. I think you will see more of this as time goes on.
THIS DOES NOT EXCUSE DICKHEAD CHENEY AND CREW FROM BEING EVIL, HAVING NO PLANS AND STARTING A POINTLESS WAR IN IRAQ. CHENEY NEEDS TO SHUT UP LIKE YESTERDAY AND STOP THE GOLDFINGER IMPERSONATION NOW.
DCPlod
I for one, don’t particularly value the opinion of someone who left office with an approval rating of, um, thirteen percent. I wish Cheney’d go back to shooting his buddies in the face instead of shooting his mouth off.
Brick Oven Bill
The history of the world has been competing settled/agricultural communities which created surpluses of energy by harnessing the power of the sun, and tribal/nomadic communities, which, though force, fed off the solar energy surpluses of settled/agricultural communities.
Islam is a tribal/nomadic religion which requires outside sources of energy to survive. Try eating poppies for dinner.
In the absence of an outside energy source (welfare, foreign aid, ‘rebuilding’, Jizya to warlords), the threat of Afghanistan in particular, and Islam in general, will consume itself.
Pull out.
I do believe that Islam in time will reform and embrace the Seven Liberal Arts. With this simple compromise, Mohammed’s vision of a Dar al-Islam can be realized.
bago
Just so everyone knows. Cheney had a dinner at Union station a few weeks ago for energy executives. They shut down half of the place. This is also the place where he was given that award about a month ago.
sparky
@SGEW: i vote narcissist–he doesn’t seem to be a sociopath viz., his daughter is not estranged, and a narcissist would be more concerned about appearances and being “wrong.” also, he can’t really be a tyrannical leader having never really duked it out for office either via elections or combat.
oh, and i must sadly concur wrt to BoB, or at least that particular post.
as for the actual reason for this post, can we just admit that Politico was trolling? seems to have worked well. if the goal is eyeballs, i’d build a guesthouse for someone over there.
mk3872
Politico is such a joke. They just revisit Cheney time after time, reprint his rantings and do not DARE to question his assertions.
Because, as we all know, Politico is nothing more than a GOP bulletin board.
BTW, did you notice that Cheney found a new reason why Obama is weak?
This time it is because he took so long to approve a new strategy. As anyone in the conservamedia will tell you, the commander in chief is expected to immediately approve any and all troop demands from field generals …
He also used the Fox News “apology tour” line in today’s Politico love fest …
Bill H
I just hope all of you are pronouncing “Cheney” correctly. It’s “Cheeny,” you know, not “Chany.” Get it right or Chris Matthews will jump down your throat. Cheney himself doesn’t seem to give a shit how it’s pronounced, no one with that name has ever been known to correct another person’s pronunciation of it, but Chris Matthews has a massive hard on about the pronunciation. He lectures about it, and he corrects people who appear on his show and pronounce it wrong.
So I don’t want to see anyong here pronouncing “Cheney” wrong. I am serving as Chris Matthews’ backup today.
jibeaux
Because if there’s one thing the American people value, it is the foreign policy opinions of Dick Fucking Cheney. It is right up there with the extent to which they value his opinions on hip hop, home decor, and being a halfway decent human being.
sparky
@ksmiami: um, two questions:
1. how exactly is the US–which cannot seal off its own borders–going to seal off a much more difficult border with hostile people on both sides halfway around the world?
2. how exactly does destabilizing Pakistan help the US? it might–might-help India, but that’s a pretty iffy assumption too.
promising ponies is promising ponies whether Bush did it or Obama does it. wrapping it with a better-spoken ribbon doesn’t change the contents of the box.
John Ball
BoB–shut the fuck up. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, you ignorant ball of crazy shit.
Apologies to any innocent bystanders. My tolerance level for this kind of crap is–often quite low, especially before lunch.
Mike Jones
Maybe Obama should “project strength” by packing Cheney off to Gitmo for treason. After all, haven’t we gone through 8 years of hearing that criticizing the President during war was treasonous?
OK, I’m not completely serious, but it’s nice to dream, eh?
DCPlod
@Bill H:
But pronouncing Cheney’s name ‘Cheeney’ is unnatural in English, and insisting on an unnatural pronounciation is something we shouldn’t be giving in to.
Q
Of course they don’t. They’re never responsible for anything.
And gotta love the “…without elaborating.” You had 90 MINUTES with the tool, how bout a little follow up? Oh, yeah, I forgot. It’s Politico.
eemom
I give up. Never thought I’d say this, but let’s go back to talking about Palin. Lesser of two evils, you betcha.
bayville
I didn’t read the interview but I’m sure a couple of crack reporters like Vandenhei and Allen peppered Cheney with questions on the Senate Democratic report released on Saturday about Tora Bora and Osama Bin Laden in 2001.
What was his response?
danimal
Wouldn’t Cheney merit news coverage if he did something unexpected? “Cheney supports Obama foreign policy” merits headlines. “Cheney steals souls and criticizes Obama” is just more of the same.
Go back to your undisclosed location and wake us up when you have something useful to say, Dick.
Demo Woman
According to Halperin, Don Senor is going to have a phone conference at 11:30 am to announce whether or not the repubs will support the President’s plan. I’m guessing they won’t.
DCPlod
@Q:
Fixed.
Rhoda
Awesome: Harris writes how Obama doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism on Monday and Cheney hits him for not believing in American exceptionalism on Tuesday. Totally forget the elogquent statement of belief in exceptionalism the President made at the G20 in London. The circle is completed.
I loved Spencer Ackerman’s take on this.
Q
@DCPlod: Funny.
bemused
I think that there are few if any rightwingers that detest our “lefty” media as much or more than I do. That’s a question for rightwingers, if the media is so “liberal”, how do they explain liberals’ constant media criticism? Never mind. That would require using logic.
DCPlod
If Fox is an extension of the GOP, then Politico is an extension of Drudge. And it also has one voice of reason named Smith.
Chat Noir
@geg6: Agreed. Why this dirtbag isn’t currently on trial at the Hague — along with his wacky sidekicks Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Libby, Addington, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, etc. — defies comprehension. If there is any kind of a god, these folks will eventually pay for what they did to this country. However, I’m not holding my breath.
ChrisB
@drag0n:
Thank you.
@Zifnab:
As I recall, the media was obsessed with Gore’s beard and waistline and that was about it. Typical.
SGEW
Ok, so let me get this straight, re: escalation in Afghanistan.
On one side (roughly), you have: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton (presumably), Spencer Ackerman, Michael O’Hanlon, Bill Kristol (probably), Matthew Yglesias, and Dick Fucking Cheney.[1]
On the other side (kind of), you have: Michael Moore, John Cole, von at ObWi, Glenzilla, Larison, George Will, and Brick Oven Bill.
Bedfellows, strange!
[1] N.B.: Except for Obama, all of these people supported the invasion of Iraq.
Elizabelle
Another day. Another Politico story.
Note the Politico “journalists” granted the Cheney interview: why’s it’s Mike Allen and Jim VanderHei. Imagine that!
Mike Allen, Bush administration stenographer, and Jim VanderHei, whose wife worked for Tom DeLay.
I don’t read Politico much because it appeals to rightwingers too much (or at least tries way too hard not to offend them).
And has anyone noticed how thoroughly sick the comments on Washington Post stories have gotten? It’s like Red State legions are scrolling (trolling?) through the threads.
Harry Whittington
Oh, Dick doesn’t mean anything by it.
It’s just his way.
Violet
@Senyordave:
Agreed. He is evil personified. I can only hope that if the
Devil is criticizing Obama’s plans, that might mean they have some merit.
wilfred
Cheney takes up the space that could have been given to opposition to this escalation. It certainly won’t be coming from the Deemocracts, who are already in full Ave Caesar mode, willing to go along with whatever Obomba wants, which is what the generals want.
A smashing victory for militarism and neo-imperialism. I’m sure the public option was the quid pro quo for this nonsense.
Finish the job, my ass. Let’s see if the Obomba hating press gives any space to real opposition.
ChrisB
@jibeaux: Cheney’s home decor. That would include a waterboard, a man sized safe, and matching prison cells (one in total darkness, the other with a naked light buld on 24 hours a day).
All at a secluded, undisclosed location.
MattF
Cheney’s audience is that clan of journalists who made an embarrassing little mess when they first saw ex-Gov. Palin and are now working at proving their ‘seriousness’. The rest of us should ignore it.
bayville
I refer to retired U.S. Army officer, military historian and writer Andrew Bacevich who outlined in October as to why this decision by Obama is horrific and will almost certainly solidify his first term as his only term.
Bacevich in Harper’s (subs. req’d).
Sampling:
GReynoldsCT00
@John Ball:
See Cleek about a pie filter, it really works wonders
El Cid
You libs don’t understand.
Dick Cheney is a PATRIOT who loves and wants the best for America; as a former Vice President for a 2 term President, he should receive round-the-clock quotation — with none a yer dam ‘fack’ checkin’ neither, elitists!
Al Gore is a self-promoting TRAITOR who wants the UN to take over America and make it into a SWEDISH GREEN PRISON, and since he has never held significant public office and never was associated with a popular and respected President, the press should avoid him at all costs, and should mainly ask why the emails prove that the last century’s studies of CO2 and global warming were all made up in the last couple of years.
Ash
@SGEW: When you lay it out in pretty lists like that, the whole thing is just really fucking weird.
flukebucket
I’ll never forget the interview I saw Cheney giving where he smugly stated that he had spent the overwhelming majority of his adult life in public service.
At the time his net worth was estimated to be in excess of 100 million dollars.
Don’t ever let anybody tell you that public service is a low paying gig.
RareSanity
The behavior of the press in this country is shameful.
Instead of looking for someone that legitimately and thoughtfully disagrees with the President, these turds interview the Jackass from Jackson Hole.
It’s just like putting a microphone in front of Terrel Owens after a loss. They know he’s going to give them a sound bite that can be discussed “with our panel” during the day.
I’m afraid we’ll have to leave it there…
D-Chance.
So I guess the whole deference to a war president thing is kaput?
2th2nayle
@SGEW: A broken clock, etc… etc…
sparky
@SGEW: not so strange. once you are assimiliated into the National Security State, there is no escape.
the “problem”, if i may use the term here, is that the Establishment (National Security State, et al) has yet to meet a war that is not a good idea for some reason or other. that means that if you oppose it you are definitionally fringe. thus there never was a serious debate about Afghanistan. what we had was a bunch of people in a room deciding what the correct-looking number of troops to send would be.
Vietnam is the obvious analogy, but to paint a sharper picture, i think the nature of the non-debate is perhaps better analogized to debate in the South in the 1850s. in other words, since the premises were crazy, no matter how elegant the discussion, the outcome was foredained to be pernicious.
Svensker
@Rhoda:
Excellent analysis except for the above, IMNVHO. The Bushies fought the war for their own premises which, I believe, were laid out in the PNAC letter that Mr. Cheney signed a few years before. What they told the public was all crapola, but they really didn’t care — they figured they’d get away with it and they pretty much did. Their only miscalculation, I think, was that they were pretty sure there’d be some kind of WMD somewhere that they could point at to justify their warmongering. But, again, FOX and the propagandists did their jobs well enough that the lack of WMD didn’t make much of a difference in how the public felt about the war.
Ash
@bayville: I don’t know much about Bacevich (except I attended a few of his lectures in college and slept through them. I probably wouldn’t have if I was aware of how important he was and all that jazz) but I’m just wondering wtf is with all this talk about “one term president”….? How the hell is anyone in any position to judge that not even one year in? Opinions and situations in this country change on an hourly basis.
2th&nayle
It’s bad when you can’t even get your own user name correctly. It maybe the medication.
4tehlulz
@D-Chance.: Expired January 20, 2009.
wolfetone
@Zifnab: Difference is, of course, that Gore won the popular vote in 2000. But I don’t recall news outlets constantly seeking out his opinion, nor do I recall Gore continuously attacking the GWB administration. He was, I’d like to note, out front early (and entirely correct) on invading Iraq.
x
Cheney, a flea on the dog’s ass of the body politic.
Speaking of dogs, I’ve been jonesin’ for some Lily love.
sparky
@Ash: there are several flavors.
1. Rs trying to gin up antagonism/defeatism.
2. pissed-off progressives (yours truly is in this camp but doesn’t buy into the one term stuff)
3. people looking at decisions like health care, financial reform and a “surge” in Afghanistan who think that some or all of these are disasters that could have been avoided that will blow up in Obama’s face.
as for me, i doubt that Afghanistan will be the death of the US empire until some time in Obama’s second term. by death i mean retreat ala Vietnam, not an actual change in thinking. the other two have the potential to blow up sooner, health care most noticeably.
Violet
@Zifnab:
And there’s that little difference in that Al Gore actually ran for President as the nominee of his party in 2000. A better comparison would be to look at how much Dan Quayle was interviewed after GHWB lost. I don’t recall his opinions being solicited on everything Clinton did.
I wonder if Dick Cheney has dirt on all the reporters and higher ups at the networks and they know it, and if they don’t show proper deference he’ll tank their careers and/or shoot them in the face.
kay
Cheney’s original rationale for weighing in on a weekly basis was that he was “defending his record”. Media pretended this was about “equal time”, so Cheney and his daughter had to be given a weekly forum to “defend”, although that wasn’t offered to any other former administration.
What’s the excuse now?
Rhoda
@Svensker
That was actually Spencer Ackerman’s analysis, I screwed up the blockquote and don’t have the edit feature.
I have no idea about what really was behind the push for Iraq but the investigations going on in London and the news Blair supported it so early are giving rise to a lot of questions.
maye
If you look too deeply into the nature of evil, you will find madness.
Dick Cheney is bat shit crazy – probably attributed (somewhat) to his arteriosclerosis.
sparky
i should have added that there is one outside (waaaay outside) possibility of something going seriously wrong in “Afghanistan.” that something serious is that we continue to destabilize Pakistan to the point where (a) India feels compelled to intervene or (b) the military gets sick of the US in the region and tells us to leave or it will “mislay” a nuclear weapon or (c) civil war breaks out in Pakistan. extremely unlikely, but given the US propensity to destroy an entire region (Cambodia, for example) it’s not impossible.
Pigs & Spiders
Dick Cheney is perhaps the most immoral man alive. He doesn’t give a flying fuck about the troops or our country. He cares about his profits and the profits of his friends. Full stop. My greatest hope for him is that he dies alone and in ambiguity. While it’s unlikely to unfold that way, I hope it happens soon.
…and I guess we’ll have to leave it there.
kay
@maye:
He’s just completely entrenched in every power base. Like Rumsfeld, he’s a self-promoter, from way back.
And we all know how media worship the powerful.
Do you remember the media slobbering over Rumsfeld? It was incredible.
Who’s the current Secretary of Defense? Seen him grinning on any magazine covers? No. Nor will you.
bayville
Ash,
Obama’s whole agenda since assuming the Presidency has been cynical. Catering entirely to huge campaign donors – the MIC, the insurance lobby, BigPhrma and banksters.
Meanwhile, the anti-war crowd, single payer/public option advocates, environmentalists and the working class are suddenly dispirited and disinterested in his “Hope and Change” rhetoric. Hell, unemployment is going to be in double-digits for years unless something drastic is done (And I’m not talking about a “listening tour” sometime next year.
This poll from Kos/Research 2000 last week highlights the growing lack of enthusiasm with Obama among Democrats.
Annie
I don’t blame Cheney. He is a mean, spiteful, and callous and will look to any forum to justify his record. I blame Politico, Fox, and any other media that give him a soapbox (and his daughter, too).
He should be shunned. He should have to spend his days caring for all the US soldiers he so callously sent to Iraq and Afghanistan, without a plan and proper equipment, etc. He should be anywhere accept in the media.
kay
@bayville:
To me, it’ s just reached the point of insanity. I listened to Keith Olberman last night and I don’t recognize this “America” he’s insisting Obama “restore”.
I don’t know how Keith Olberman remembers the pre-Bush America, but it’s nothing like I remember it.
Bill Clinton was no civil libertarian, and Reno and Patrick Fitzgerald were manipulating process way before Bush, up to and including taping discussions between terrorist defendant’s and their counsel, after the first World Trade bombing. They’ve been playing fast and loose with due process almost from the moment they identified terrorism as a threat.
Bill Clinton was picking up people using rendition, we were starving Iraqis, we were signing trade agreements as soon as the ink dried, deregulating Wall Street, and on and on and on. Before the 2000 election.
I feel as if Obama’s critics want to return to some “America” that never was, way prior to Clinton’s term, and they want to do it in a year.
D-Chance.
Looks like there will be no need for a trial… US justice, where the police exact revenge without need of a judge or jury.
bemused
I saw my Marine nephew on Thanksgiving. He will probably be going to Afghanistan, said they’ve just been waiting on Obama’s decision. He’s been stateside for awhile so now our family will have to start worrying again.
Mike in NC
About halfway through “Nixonland”, where Kissinger is advising Tricky Dick to bomb the shit out of North Vietnam to prove he isn’t “weak”. Good thing those guys didn’t dither and procrastinate, right?
Just Some Fuckhead
Cheney is so evil his own heart has been trying to slay the beast that enslaves it.
Ash
@bayville: Yeah, except the election is in, uh, three years. I don’t know, in my world three years is a REALLY LONG TIME.
bemused
OT but heard on Stephanie Miller Show that Rush Limbaugh is getting married again. 4th marriage on the 4th of July.
jwb
@bemused: Should we start a betting pool on how long it will last?
bayville
kay-
I felt Clinton was arguably the second-best Republican President of the 20th century (next to TR). He gave the GOP everything they wanted – Welfare reform, deficit reduction, the Telecommunications Act of 2006, GATT, NAFTA, Robert Rubin, Greenspan, etc.
Unfortunately for the masses the Phil Gramm/Jerry Falwell-wing of the party got greedier and crazier.
Obama is just duplicating the Clinton playbook, but unlike the Clinton years there is an economic depression brewing and two ongoing wars that aren’t going to end anytime soon.
At the very least I wanted to repeal the worst aspects of the Cheney/W. era. He hasn’t.
Ed Drone
@DCPlod:
Actually, the vowel-consonant-vowel string should make the first “e” a long “e”, and thus “Chee-Knee” follows English pronunciation rules just fine. That, indeed, may be why Chris “the pedant” Mathews insists on it. Since Cheney — asshole enough to care — hasn’t insisted on that pronunciation, and answers quite quickly to “Chain-knee,” I’d say the latter is the proper way to say it.
Although the alternate pronunciation (“Rat-Bastard”) is acceptable, and understood the world over.
Ed
GReynoldsCT00
@bemused:
Just eeeeeeeuuwwww
Ash Can
In other news, Politico is reporting that the ever-classy Washington Times is running a full-page birther ad, complete with chimpanzees (h/t GOS). Jeezus, hasn’t that shithole gone out of business yet?
bemused
@jwb:
Just what is the proper length of time before cashing out these days?
Ash Can
@bemused:
@jwb:
Fifty bucks says she’s doing it only for the divorce settlement.
GReynoldsCT00
@Ash Can:
still not worth it
TaosJohn
Sending troops to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban is like sending the army to Alabama to fight the Baptists. How much longer are we going to put up with this bullshit?
ksmiami
sparky – No we don’t want a destabilized Pakistan which is what is happening now as the Taliban takes over swaths of the country. Pak has friggin nukes and god forbid if the crazies get hold of them. We need a strongman central government in Pak unafraid to confront the fanatics, but we don’t need to be obvious about it. My guess is that we will help secure the cities of Afghanistan and do some trading in the rural parts, but I hope the footprint is light.
bayville
Ash-
How long have we been in Iraq? Afghanistan?
So in three years, you think unemployment drops to 7%, DOW hovers near 14K, gas levels off at $3 per gallon, the world -suddenly – decides to start buying those beautiful gas guzzling American-made cars three-at-a-time and the middle class will start to prosper once again?
Can you e-mail me a pair of those rose colored glasses you’re wearing?
ksmiami
Also Sparky – whatever happens wrt to Pakistan will end up being India’s fight. You can take that to the bank.
J.D. Rhoades
@drag0n:
Not only were they not capable of doing it, Rumsfeld threatened to fire the next general who asked about “phase 4” (i.e. post-combat) planning.
Hann1bal
What’s the Cheney equivalent of the tire swing? ‘Cause I think the press has really gotten to that level.
J.D. Rhoades
That’s actually not a bad idea. Teach the fuckers a lesson.
Elizabelle
Serious question, since some BJ readers probably know this and can offer up some good links:
How did Herbert Hoover behave in the face of FDR’s attempted reforms?
I am guessing he was more GWBush (silent for the most part) than Cheney (insufferable) but don’t know.
Were there national Republicans who got the seriousness of the nation’s plight and worked to bring about reforms?
I know, sheer laziness on my part in asking and not preliminarily researching. But counting on BJ to steer me to some interesting links.
jwb
@Ash Can: I would think she is doing it to save him.
kay
@bayville:
We see things a little differently. These issues had a long arc. All of them. The craven worship of the finance sector, the war(s), the War On Terror approach, hell, Democrats and Republicans are exactly the same on trade, and have been for forty years.
Everybody knows at least the outlines of our storied involvement in Afghanistan. We’ve been meddling in that place for 30 years.
Irony Abounds
My wish for the new year: a massive, very painful and prolonged fatal heart attack for Cheney. The man is utterly and completely without morals and he is the one that hates America and its institutions.
Shawn in ShowMe
Except for the gas guzzling cars thing, those other benchmarks are actually desirable and reachable. A lot is riding (literally) on Shai Agassi’s Better Place electric-car model.
The price of an electric mile is projected to be 8 cents when the first electric cars hit the market next year, which is the equivalent of an $1.60/gallon car. Because battery life cycle and energy density improves over time that price will drop even further over the next few years. Anybody foolish enough to charge $3/gallon will only accelerate the rate of electric car adoption.
Maude
@ksmiami: You have stated something that the msm has no concept of. They don’t know India’s history. They don’t understand that Pakistan is having a very hard time with fanatics. They have no idea about foreign policy as opposed to just kill people.
Kay-and the Clintons are worth over $100 mil.
bayville
Kay, are you saying that although the citizenry elected Mr. Hope & Change they shouldn’t expect any Hope & Change because the Dems/Reps are a lot alike?
Sounds like Nader’s rationale to me?
kay
@Maude:
Yeah. I don’t have any real problems with the Clintons. They do what they do, and they’re better at some things than others.
I do have a problem with liberals like Keith Olberman pretending we were living in some populist, peaceful shangri-la prior to Bush, or that all you have to do with a modern financial crisis is track the FDR approach, and it’s fixed!
None of that is true.
Seanly
@dmsilev:
The only problem is that they can’t stop Cheney from snapping the cat’s spine in half & slurping on the sweet, sweet spinal fluids.
Uggh, I think I just grossed myself out…
bayville
Shawn you are an optimist and an idealist and I hope you are correct.
But there isn’t one positive economic trend I see or one serious corrective solution being discussed by the political elite that would indicate, to me, this will happen.
You can’t spend $5 billion per week on two neverending wars and then in the same breathe talk about deficit reduction (w/out massive tax increases) and seriously expect to stimulate job growth.
It ain’t happenin’.
kay
@bayville:
No, not really. I don’t like the “hope and change” snark, though. I think it’s disrespectful to voters.
I’m saying that we chose some of these directions over a period of decades, and the intensity of the Bush years was a departure, but the outlines were and are the same.
Bill Clinton can make a perfectly reasonable argument that he was a populist who benefitted the middle class. Just in terms of how people did, his numbers are really unimpeachable.
But he was also seduced by deregulation, promoted the finance sector, and like every other powerful person in the US, is a free trader.
And, the idea that he was somehow concerned about civil liberties is a flat-out joke. The only reason he didn’t do extraordinary rendition is he wanted the protection of a court order. Reno was a horror, in my view. An authoritarian liberal who cloaked that impulse in concern for human rights. I hope she’s not Keith Olberman’s vision of “restoration”.
We got here on an arc. Expecting to get back to some mythical place, where we “restore” America is going to take a while, if we get there at all.
ksmiami
Maude:
Because the MSM is made up of charlatans and infotainment people who are afraid of deep thought and reading international blogs and news, or at least talking to the Indian guy working in their tech department. I turned them off years ago (started with Bush II the lesser) and have never gone back. If the US survives this period I will think it has something to do with the internet and the availability of information from real sources
bayville
Kay, I don’t consider Olberman a liberal: I consider him an opportunist and don’t watch his show much so I’m not really sure what he said.
I didn’t (don’t) like Bill Clinton – although I voted for him once. Other than that, I’m not sure where you and I have a disagreement. I agree wholeheartedly with your post at 124.
SiubhanDuinne
@Bill H:
This is right at the top of the long, long list of things I detest about Tweety.
trollhattan
I’d call Cheney reptillian but that would be an insult to lizards everywhere.
He’s truly somebody who sought power for power’s sake and misses it dearly. That there are so many willing enablers today uncritically giving him a platform and megaphone says as much about them as he.
That said, he should fuck off. And take reptile junior with him.
kay
@bayville:
Oh, I like Clinton. I ended up with real affection for him. I like all the things other people hate: his excess, his willingness to wheel and deal, the fact that the douchebags in DC never quite thought he was good enough.
I think he always had good intentions, he absolutely understood and identified with outsiders or marginal people, and I think he’s the hard ass in that family, not Hillary.
He just looked at the general direction we were going followed that, but tried to spread some of the financial benefit around while mitigating some damage, and succeeded, to a certain extent.
noncarborundum
@DCPlod: Well played, sir! Well played!
noncarborundum
@Ed Drone:
DCPlod was snarking. Look up Mark Krikorian’s comment on the pronunciation of “Sotomayor”.
Wile E. Quixote
I really wish that President Obama would call Cheney on his bullshit. Have a press conference and say “Look, Afghanistan is a complex situation, and it was made more complex by the complete and utter incompetence of the Bush/Cheney administration who should be charged with either treason or at least malfeasance for letting Osama bin Laden escape at Tora Bora. I’m trying to get this right so it doesn’t turn into a total disaster like Iraq did due to the stupidity, arrogance and incompetence of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.”
This would be unprecedented, but on the other hand the kind of bullshit that Cheney is engaging in is unprecedented as well, so go out there and accuse him of treasonous incompetence for letting Osama bin Laden escape and then let the evil old bastard defend himself. If President Obama doesn’t want to do it then have Biden do it. Hammer on the meme that Bush and Cheney screwed up and let a man who orchestrated the worst terrorist attack in American history escape. Hammer on the fact that thanks to the incompetence of Bush and Cheney the man who murdered 3,000 Americans on September 11th is still free. Make Bush and Cheney defend themselves.
There’s a story, probably apocryphal, about Lyndon Johnson during the 1964 election. Johnson told an aide that he wanted to accuse Barry Goldwater of being a pigfucker. When the aide said “you can’t accuse Goldwater of being a pigfucker, we have no proof” Johnson replied and said “I know, I just want to make him deny it.” That’s the kind of thing President Obama needs to be doing to the Republicans.
Wile E. Quixote
@J.D. Rhoades
Only after a long and protracted campaign of saturation bombing.
auntieeminaz
@Just Some Fuckhead: Much more eloquent than my sentiment of eat shit and die.
Cynicor
“President Obama projects weakness,” said Dick Cheney before being wheeled back to his car while sitting in his prop wheelchair.
Just Some Fuckhead
@auntieeminaz: Right? How fucking awesome am I?