Totally speculation about Cheney's motives, but there is a certain kind of older wealthy person who has an arrogance about what they deserve that is totally conversely in proportion to what they feel 'those people' deserve. Blind to their hypocrisy as they rail about the 'entitlements' and 'welfare' for others as they themselves feel entitled to everything, and wouldn't think twice about calling a friend in government to do them a favor. Cheney's behavior feels like that to me. Exacerbated by constantly being wrong and the 'unwashed masses' desire for accountability, he pulls back and feels outraged. "How DARE they?!" Eventually his goals become self-protection and revenge. And the fact that he needs to 'protect' himself simply further enrages him, pushing him into greater extremes of protection and acting out. I believe at this point his secrecy and power-grabbing are simply self-satisfying for him since they come at the cost of our liberty and freedoms.

I'm reminded of Robert Graves' "I, Claudius" in which he had Caligula rage at the stadium crowd, "If you only had one neck, I'd hack it through." That's what I think Cheney thinks when he looks out his window at America.

Lastly, I want to point out, as I do whenever this constant and unchallenged meme comes up, regarding Powell's reputation as a good soldier. Back when Clinton was president and Powell was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell resigned rather than support Clinton's newly enacted "Don't ask, don't tell" policy for gays serving in the military. That's right, good soldier boy quit the military because he didn't like his boss' orders. Powell is a wannabe player who made his moves with self-serving calculation. He just wasn't a match for the real players. Powell is a punk.

Its too late. Unless every major bush administration official were hauled before court, tried and convicted for the damage they've done to America, then the damage will be permanent.

The press dropped the ball BIG time when it really mattered. When the country needed light shined in the darkness it wasn't there.

Our founding fathers guaranteed a free press knowing that a free press would be needed one day to save the country from tyranny and corruption, and when that time came, our free press was more worried about 'access', circulation, advertising and perhaps most galling and ironic of all: being called unpatriotic.

Christ I just made myself nauseous.

"It was all very upbeat," said Peter Spaulding, who chairs McCain's campaign in the Granite State. "The average person up here doesn't know who is running the campaign."

Good to finally hear someone admit that their political strategy depends on the electorate being ignorant of current events.

From the conservative point of view normally used to defend restricting our civil liberties "If you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to hide", one can only come to the conclusion that the Cheney/bush administration have done a lot of wrong.

Yes you are right, by definition the bush regime is not at all conservative. It is criminal. However its supporters. defenders and apologists are conservative. This does not mean ALL conservatives are bush supporters, but its fair to say all his supporters are conservatives, no?

Besides, are you saying that reducing our civil liberties through increased governmental and police powers is not usually defended by conservatives with the bumper-sticker reasoning of "If you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide"?

Regardless of which politician or political group attempts to reduce our civil liberties, or invade our privacy in order to 'protect' us, it is conservatives (when I say 'conservatives' I'm referring to the electorate who describe themselves as such, not politicians) who generally say "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about" or some such similar refrain, and it is liberals who generally oppose it.

I agree with you that it makes no sense. I was under the impression that conservatism strongly championed civil liberties in the context of small gov't. But anyway my point is that the political parties of all stripes use the labels 'conservative' and 'liberal' as it suits them and the names mean almost nothing anymore. Though I think the conservatives have taken a bigger blow here since bush & co. have really for the first time chosen to abuse their base and deliberately changed the definition of conservative to mean "support bush no matter what he does"

This is typically republican(Orwellian)in its hypocrisy considering ALL of the republican candidates are embarrassing themselves trying to be Regan.

Obviously if you're going to need to 'cover up' and you know you're going to need to 'cover up' it makes sense to cover up everything or it becomes obvious when you're up to no good.

I stopped reading Friedman's columns after noticing that for about a year he would manage to work the title of his book "The World Is Flat" into every column. Lost interest in his views since he treated his column as a commercial.

What is this BS? I've heard this several times now that Gonzalez has 'later revised his testimony'. What the hell is that? You get to lie under oath as long as you send a letter a week later correcting yourself?

So what if his revised testimony corrects the record, didn't he still lie when he was before congress?

It's no wonder congress is treated with contempt, their spinelessness makes them contemptible.

If you think raising children sucks, then absolutely you shouldn't have them.

I only hope many people who are of the same temperament as the author read this book and spare themselves future bitter regret.

I think considering how much repubs say they like Bush's down-to-earth, man-of-the-people style (euphemisms for him being a moron) I don't think Romney's comment, dripping with high-brow condescension is going to play well with his base. I bet it comes back to bite him in the ass.

The larger issue reflects the unspoken contempt for the people the repubs claim they want to govern.