Letters to the Editor
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Truth Commission
The United States needs a truth commission to unearth all that the Bush Administration has done. We need it for very practical purposes: the truth may hurt, but without learning the truth, the rumors and innuendo will plague this country for decades. If we ever hope to resume our world leadership, we first need to learn the truth.
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Chilling story
I read three parts of the Post's series today, but didn't have the heart for the fourth. Its all so sad, so devastating. I agree that Cheney may have more in store for us now that he is in his 'endgame.' Gellman and Becker repeatedly show how Cheney actually wins after defeat.
I can't help but think of Halliburton. What is Cheney actually working towards? Power, yes, but to what end?
Thanks for bringing this work to Salon.
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Why the f@#k aren't...
...you heradling the piece of shite has finally been subpoenaed?!? Get to friggin' work!!!
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What is Cheney actually working towards? Power, yes, but to what end?
That's my question too. What's ultimately in it for him? What does the Unitary Executive accomplish that he wants so badly? After all, it could theoretically be used just as effectively by politicians with the opposite views and priorities from his. Or does he still believe Rove's fantasy of the permanent Republican majority? Or are they planning to make a career out of stealing elections?
Assuming they can't/don't steal the 2008 election, what happens to Cheney after January 20, 2009? Will someone as visceral and vicious as he is just go home? What's his real game?
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I hate Dick Cheney....
I pity Bush but the nastiness of Cheney-hate seeps inexorably back no matter my efforts to finally banish this awful thing.
So I keep after it.
When I think of this man and the evil he has done and of which he is still capable I think --myself?! -- of torture and inflicting longterm agony, immiseration -- on him,
just as has he on so many others -- and I fight that back too.
And that is just some of the mental anguish which he has brought to us all.
ALL OF THAT said:
-Scowcroft has told us perplexedly that "he just doesn't know this Dick Cheney", a man with whom he has been close and closely associated. Puzzled , he simply no longer 'knew' Cheney...something had shape-shifted.
-Cheney has had any number of cardiac events and interventions any and each of which might have infarcted brain tissues;
Resulting in impairment or destruction of any number of loci in the cerebrum.*
These centers or connections might well have been critical to judgment or empathy or any of the pre-frontal areas given to simple human socializations. Those brain places which secure us from active sociopathy
-And in that and those possibilities, I take refuge from the
malevolent surges which have so taken me about this man..
[And would dearly love to have a top neuro-scientist begin to look at Dick Cheney with a bunch of fMRIs or PET scans to see perhaps and finally understand this man's most deeply seated pathologies.]
That thinking helps...I'm gonna be alright.
And I might even be right.
And actual human evil doesn't happen.
[*very recent studies in ischemic cognitive events.]
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Tis so late....
Only now, in the twilight of Bush years that Washington Post sees it fit to publishing this series. Where were they all these years, surely this didn't happen overnight.
Well the damage has already been done. Cheney and gang have set in motion events that are playing out with ferrocious carnage for all to see. For some time to come...
How did such a man and his coteries with so much contempt for accpeted norms of governance rose to such a prominent position? For non-Americans, that this to has happen in America which has prided itself as a bastion of civilised values- ie free media, checks and balances, accountability, rule of law etc- all seems so hollow.
They joournal may win pulitzers but you know what they can do
with them...
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Huey Long
While I definitely see the point of comparing the relationship between Huey Long and OK Allen to that between Cheney and Bush, I must protest a bit. I have studied Huey a good bit, and I have to say that there is a great gulf between him and Cheney. Yes, Huey Long ran a terribly corrupt regime in Louisiana, and, yes, he had an insatiable lust for power. However, Huey really did a great deal of good in Louisiana. Corrupt and brutal as he was, he genuinely cared for the little guy, and worked to help give him a hand. He was also competent. What I am saying is that Huey had virtues to mitigate his clear vices. With Cheney, there is only vice - the man has literally done nothing worthy of praise in his time as VP while acting as a corrosive, caustic influence on American government. No matter what you think of Huey Long, he deserves far more than to ever be associated with Dick Cheney.
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Splendid, as always
No one blends original (thought anonymously sourced) reporting with punditry so skillfully as Sidney Blumenthal. He has led the way, far in front of the pack, in reporting on the Bush White House.
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Cheney-Monster's Enablers
Regarding Powell...his fall has been the most perplexing piece of this idiocy, and I was never a Powell-Groupie. But I will always remember having flown to Europe, picking up a International Herald Tribune while changing planes in CDG, reading of Powell's UN speech, and "liar" was the word that instantly came to mind. It's never left. He can wonder all he wants about how Cheney played him for a fool, but that really misses the point. Despite Cheney hiding memos from him, as Secretary of State he had immeasurably better access to information than I did as an ordinary citizen, and yet he spewed such transparent crap. That was a choice, not an obligation.
Regarding Cheney and Bush...I agree with the writer who described Cheney as evil, but I don't share his sympathy for Bush. Bush allowed, and continues to allow, the Cheney-Monster to do his thing. Bush is the President...he could end it today if he chose. After 6.5 years it should be very clear what his choice has been.