To paraphrase Dick Cheney: "This was a bad actor and the country's better off, the world's better off, with Bush gone, and I think the American people made the right decision in spite of the fact that the original [intelligence] was off...," he said.

(What he said was, "This was a bad actor and the country's better off, the world's better off, with Saddam gone, and I think we made the right decision in spite of the fact that the original [intelligence] was off in some of its major judgments," he said.)

On the mistaken policy to invade Iraq, on intelligence, on torture - Cheney perverted policy, distorted intelligence and disfigured our national ethos. Mr. 12% should stfu. He should be ashamed of himself for openly distorting his record of subversion of the Constitution and the Geneva accords.

No single person has damaged our national security, our intelligence agencies and our military more than Cheney. He is unmatched. Cheney doctrines, based upon Nixon's dictum that "if the President does it, it is not illegal," and fictional theories of a "unitary executive" and the VP as a "fourth branch" are distinctly unAmerican.

In effect, he singlehandedly kidnapped innocent people, tortured them and visited a genocide on a nation that never attacked us. With a paranoia comparable only to Hitler in the modern world, Cheney arbitrarily determined that we must imprison a thousand lest one terrorist go free, discarding the 200-year-old American judicial benchmark to allow 1000 criminals to go free rather than imprison one innocent man, is similar to his notion that if there is a one-percent chance that a nation has the ability to attack us, that we must preempt them.

Pumphead syndrome is a very real problem for cardiac patients. Friends of his have testified in anecdotal reports that this was not the Dick Cheney they once knew. Indeed, if a truth commission is able to find fact, it will be this: Dick Cheney disfigured our national ethos and the Congress enabled it.

Fear mongering was visited upon us on the level of a ticking time bomb.

He is depending on the next wave of domestic terror to preserve his political record. He should be arrested and renditioned to the Hague pending Obama's signature of the Rome Treaty, unless, of course, he's willing to take an official advisory role in a locked office at the White House where we can keep a watchful eye on his every move.

...good reasons for Obama to have anklebraceleted Mullen and Hayden (as well as Gates) to his new administration. These appointments also make it a lot easier for Obama to denude their executive privilege shield against subpoenas by a theoretical truth commission. Does this particular matter of keeping the intel and defense chiefs on for "continuity of government" now become a bit clearer?

These are two entirely different levels of hypocrisy. I would argue that Spitzer has done the greater more insidious damage.

I love to hear how these neorepublican shills debase themselves and their stupid logic (or is it logic for stupid people?) What they really need is Sarah Palin back out there as our resident national moralist, but they don't want to admit it. What they need to appear moderate is a Hannity or a Limbaugh.

Extremist ideology bans abortion (as well as birth control), and it violently restricts gays from the equal protection of the law. Its dominionism defines the United States as an exclusively Christian nation; it is, quite simply, anti-democratic and vilely discriminatory. Such religious determinism is arrogant, intolerant and distinctively unAmerican. I am ashamed of it.

They threaten to undermine the very basis upon which Congress, the Executive and the Judicial, our entire government, is considered Soveriegn. Surely this is a Congressional and legislative matter.

Now, with a full set of seats at the table, they are going to have to justify their extremist and reprehensible anti-democratic, discriminatory agenda in full public view. (I would add, too, that it is a subversive agenda.)

Should Congress hold hearings, Congress will have an opportunity to fully air the A-Bomb of extremist ideology that has marred our democratic ideals and threatens to destroy the fabric of our government.

What more could a progressive want?

I also want progressive ideas to be challenged so that they can be crystallized in diametric opposition to religionist authoritarianism.

We lost Prop H8 in CA because we failed to get the vote out. Yet, the majority would clearly not be threatened by homosexual marriage/civil union; by wide margins, men and women consider that abortion should be entirely a woman's right; the protection of the sovereignty of the states is what is at issue, and it is essential to uphold these basic civil rights.

Religionists would attempt to replace the legal authority under which we live with their own: that is an issue I want to see aired and defeated very, very publicly.

There is nothing more to Obama's selection of Rick Warren than that. At once, he's calling their bluff, and he's calling Congress's bluff as well. This is what Obama does, and it doesn't cost him anything.

I would not play poker with this man. His victories always seem to depend upon the losses of others rather than his own ingenuity. That's pretty revolutionary, for a public that has been assaulted by its government; it's entirely good Democratic Party politics, and it IS brilliant!

This is the strategic play of a fine legal mind - making apparent tactical errors that are misunderstood by his core constituents, but that advance an agenda. It's Macchiavellian and very Zen.

Bushido creed: "Fall down seven times; stand up eight!"

ezdidit | 12.18.08 - 2:02 pm |

[ also posted at http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/praying-for-realignment-by-digby-ive.html ]

Exactly my point, but extreme religious trends go much farther than that.

Obama may have to go even farther to his right in order to enrage his progressive base and rouse it from its indolence.