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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Start with the answer and work your way to the means.
The nerve--the raw friggin' nerve. And contempt. And cynicism. Yikes. What next? Really?! Bush's "joke" that "this would all be a lot easier if I was dictator" was oh so very telling.
About a year ago, I was lectured to by a man who told me that "the real damage is done not by those who are elected, but by those who are appointed by the elected." People voted for Bush in spite of Cheney, not because of him. And I bet about 2% of Bush's supporters even know who David Addington is. At the time, I thought I was being lectured to by a bitter man whose time had passed. But he's looking awful wise to me right now.
For whatever reason, voters in this country seem to trust candidates who are, shall we say, not necessarily the brightest bulbs. Or at least come off that way. Bush is case in point. But when that is the case, doesn't it stand to reason that said simpleton is very likely to be a puppet? And doesn't that matter in some way?
John Nance Garner never, ever said, "Being Vice-President isn't worth a warm bucket of spit".
He said, "Being Vice-President isn't worth a warm bucket of piss"!
Why, oh why does this Bowdlerized quote survive today?
Think about it, warm spit makes no sense. The quote was cleaned up when it was said in the 1930's, but unfortunately, many writers continue to use it.
Stop it! Stop it now!
But Cheney is the defacto President of the United States, so what's the problem? He's like the Self-Defense Forces in Japan, not recognized by the Constitution but existing nevertheless. I'm glad to see that Bush took the time to clarify who's really in charge at the White House. It's the kind of disclosure that I hope to see more of in the future.
Cheny, Rove and their buddies on k street. Come on who's really in charge.
I keep telling folks, why hate Bush? He's just a hood ornament. If you really think Bush is capable of all the diabolical plots he's been accused of your giving him waaaay to much credit.
Tip to politicians everywhere, when choosing a brainless puppet please put a little more effort into getting him to look and talk like a real leader. 1000s dead for the sake of oil and defense contractors is one thing but having your national leader be as articulate and as a trained chimp just makes it embarrasing to hold a US passport.
Sorry I don't have the patience to look this all up and provide a link, but I heard on NPR that that executive order on declassification only gave Cheney the power to declassify material he had himself first classified. Still an expansion of powers, but different. There's a kind of twisting of the truth in what Cheney said to Hume, I guess with the aim of protecting Libby.
So March 25 will henceforth be known as Presidential Abdication Day based on President Clueless'Executive Order 13292 that invested Vice President Birdshot with all presidential powers. Shouldn't we all be really, really angry about this subversion of our Constitution-- or has the public simply been desensitized by Bush and company's repeated rape of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Come on Congress,do what a responsible Congress is supposed to do.....Impeachment Now...
In San Francisco, after the 12 December 2000 Supreme Court decision that put George W. Bush in the White House, some wiseacre made up a bunch of stickers that said "Puppet St." in white letters on a green background, closely resembling San Francisco's street signs. These were pasted all along Bush Street overnight.
Well, now the nation is slowly waking up to the reality that President Bush is in fact Dick Cheney's puppet. He is little more than a figurehead, and as I mentioned in response to a Garrison Keillor piece from last week, a rather poor one at that. That our Congress as well as a large plurality of Americans could either not see this or simply didn't care that Dick Cheney was in fact pulling President Bush's strings, even after the revelation of the existence of Executive Order 13292 is a stinging indictment of the decrepit moral state of our society. We have been sold a bill of goods, have paid a heavy price in blood and treasure for our foolishness and complacency, with even heavier costs yet to come, and we just went along with our daily business as if nothing was wrong.
May God have mercy upon us.
The actual Bush Cheney co-presidency seems to enact in real-life a bizarre proposal from Ronald Reagan at the 1980 GOP convention. Reagan had secured the nomination and was casting about for a strong ticket for what was expected to be a close race (it actually was for most of the way, with the vote breaking for Reagan late in the campaign).
He came up with the idea of running with former president Gerald Ford. At that time, the public had considerably more confidence in Ford than Reagan. His defeat in 1976 had not been overwhelming and he remained both reasonably popular in the country and was considered less doctrinaire than Reagan.
Ford, naturally enough, was not content with the stock vice presidential role, having been president himself. To sweeten the pot, Reagan suggested a co-presidency, in which the two men would share the powers of the office. The discussions were batted around for a while, but both men seem to have agreed that it would be unworkable in practice, and that there really could be only one president.
Bush and Cheney seem to have thought differently. Reagan is often considered to have been something of a slacker in the sense that he delegated a lot and was often out of touch with what was happening. But he seems like a Lyndon Johnson when compared to Bush, whose latest misfeasance seems to be not knowing about the decision to award the ports contract to a UAE company, and who always seems to be either riding an excercise bike or a real bike or in schoolroom full of kids for a photo op when random emergencies occur in during normal business hours.
The results of the Bush-Cheney co-presidency, however, are not such that successors are likely to embrace a similar arrangement, or for that matter, simply be content to live in the Big House and fly around on the Big Plane while someone else calls all the shots. Look for the next VP to lose his Power of Classification, and who knows what other actual powers.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
