From the Washington Post article on this book:

"But that approach constricted the mission of the intelligence and counterterrorism professionals whose point of view dominates this book. Many of them came to believe, Suskind reports, that "their jobs were not to help shape policy, but to affirm it." (Some of them nicknamed Cheney "Edgar," as in Edgar Bergen -- casting the president as the ventriloquist's dummy.)"

I don't claim to be the FIRST to draw a similar parallel here on Salon, or anywhere else, but it really struck me as weird that I'd written the following, back in Feb. 2006, on the topic of the Dubai ports deal:

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"Where to start? "President Bush was unaware..." Tell us something we DIDN'T know already. And how silly is it to call this "...his administration..."? Is there ANYONE who still believes Bush is in control of ANYTHING? If he were in control, would it be possible for such a controversial issue to proceed to final approval without involving or even INFORMING our Dear Leader?

How much more of this must occur before everyone realizes the truth -- that we have a Figurehead in Chief, not a Commander in Chief? Our President is nothing but a ventriloquist's dummy like Charlie McCarthy, except we don't know for sure who "Edgar Bergen" is -- and there's NOTHING comic about this situation."

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Now we know for sure what has been suspected for a LONG time -- Cheney is Edgar Bergen, to GWB's Charlie McCarthy (or Mortimer Snerd!).

Indeed, now that we're finally paying attention, Cheney could more properly be described as the person behind the curtain, pulling all the strings, pushing all the buttons and providing the voice of our "great and powerful" Wizard of Oz. Too bad we won't be able to wake up for another two-and-a-half years, if then. Too bad we can't click our heels and bring our country back home again NOW.

Note, too, that Lou Dobbs of CNN reported earlier this week that Dubai STILL owns the company now managing our ports. Now that the huge ruckus over this ports deal has died away, the public has lost interest and the deal went through as originally planned. We'd better lose our short attention span on such controversies!

But the description of a United States of America that captures, and then tortures, a mentally ill man and then goes into panic mode when this guy announces farfetched terror plots while under duress and mentally ill makes me sick.

Dear God, what has happened to us?

Does it do any good to complain to our Congress, or will they, as Dave Barry once said, burn our letters as a safety precaution? Do they care what we think as much as they care about what the special is tonight at some restuarant on DuPont Circle? If we marched in the streets, would it be conflict with the summer repeats of American Idol and be ignored?

I love my country. I defend it in spirited arguments with people from Europe or the people who quote our sins out of context to score intellectual points at parties.

But my God, maybe this time we really are sliding into the abyss.

Seriously.... at this point, Chimpie could have flown those planes into the WTC and Pentagon himself and Republicans would still protect and praise their idiotic, fratboy, monkey-puppet.

The American spirit has been reduced to glowing embers, stamped out by political partisanism, hypocrisy, fear, corruption and intolerance. It's time to re-structure our government, making private campaign contributions illegal. It's time to obey the Constitution and keep religion out of politics. It's time to get this country back on track before we find ourselves unable to do so.

Our system of government has been abused by lobbyists, special interests and big corporation fat-cats, looking to give huge bundles of cash to any "chimp" who will get into office and fullfill their own selfish, greed-based wishes.

ignoring pre-9/11 intelligence, Katrina, WMD's, torture, murder - time and time again, the blatant incompetence of this current administration slaps us in the face and we do nothing.

Al-Zarqawi could have been taken out (killed) three years ago. Instead of doing the job when they should have, the administration used him as a "get out of jail free" card, killing him off to give Chimpie and his cronies their much needed shot in the arm.

The current administration is banking on keeping us scared, keeping us in the dark and feeding us lies and twisted facts. And we do nothing. Honestly, what will it take?

The ass that's been covered is Widdle Georgie's flabby fraternal tush, covered in the ashes of the Bill of Rights.

That memo is like reading the horoscope in the paper - occasionally it will be right, and then it'll look freaking prescient. Nobody remembers the day their horoscope was dead wrong.

Bush got this memo. In hindsight, we can say he should have acted on it. But how? I've heard nothing to indicate that the warning was nearly specific enough to give any grounds to actually _act_.

Hey, man -- don't you recall the never-ending talking points that were hammered home ad nauseum by Bush, Condi Rice and essentially everyone else in the administration?

"We would have moved heaven and earth to prevent such an attack if ANYONE thought something like this could happen." "NO ONE could have anticipated hijacking airplanes to be used as weapons."

Oh, really? OH, REALLY??

Seems to me we've found the smoking gun, again and again and again. Anyone who refuses to admit this truth is in MAJOR denial. Bush WAS warned. He chose to act in typical Bush fashion -- ignore the information and belittle its messenger. Now we (and the world) must live with the results, probably into the next generation or two.

Bush really hates it when things do not go exactly as planned, and sometimes he shoots his mouth off in a very revealing way.

"All right. You've covered your ass now:" At that moment, George Tenet's fate was sealed, "slam dunk" re WMD or not. Whoever prepared/gave that PDB may be a hero of sorts.

Perhaps this little tid-bit will wake up some of those who are still sleep-walking into history.

A critical, still missing piece of information is just who profited from the unprecedented short-selling of airline and insurance industry stocks in the two weeks prior to 9-11. I suspect that that list would open many more eyes, at least for those whose eyes have not yet been pecked out by the vultures of greed, fear, or war-fever. I tried to get information out of the SEC in the months following 9-11, but had no luck. Anybody got anything on this issue?

Cheers,