Well, up until his getting the Vice Presidency, Cheney's life seems typical for a political - moderately schemey intellectually-slack willing to take more than his share of the scutwork networks his way to the Capitol on the backs of his connections. Not hugely enlightening - if you know any politicians, this is pretty typical. They're not intellectual giants, they're superb networkers, they show little individual loyalty in the face of personal advancement, and they tend to go from job to job to job, generally (if they're successful politicians) in increasing importance/prestige.
Once the author gets to the Cheney's vice presidency, Iraq comes in, and the usual suspects rear their heads - they pushed it through regardless of fact, they eliminated dissenters, they gelded Powell, he's just plain evil, etc, ad infinitum. So I guess, as a thumbnail psychological profile of sorts for the unitiated, the article is not without its insights, but as a bob to plumb the depths of What Makes Cheney Cheney? It's a little thin (like, anorexic) and falls, in the end, to familiar polemic.
As for the question of competence, which the article charges, well, politicians in general tend to be a twinch less competent, by and large, than their counterparts at similar levels of power and authority in the private sector. Government is the last bastion of the mediocre because the cushion for failure is so soft and comfy, after all.
I'm not a fan of Cheney's, so I enjoyed reading that. But it was a guilty enjoyment, like eating an entire pint of ice cream by yourself or watching cheesy tv shows. It's possibily the most biased article I've ever read about a member of this administration.
Agreed, it's probably pretty typical career path for a politico, but a couple of things stuck out for me:
1) Cheney's consistent role in pushing his presidents and party to the extreme right, to the detriment of long time GOP moderates and sometimes without an apparent goal other than "pushing the ball as far as one can"
2) the theme that he is the most unempathetic man many of his friends and peers have ever met.
Yeah it's really biased, but at some point a spade's a spade. I think the author just got carried away. What would the Rolling Stone article on Hitler have said? "He's viewed as a bit of an extremist by some moderates"
Plus they could have mentioned his unmerciful slaughter of caged animals for fun (Cheney, not Hitler). But they didn't. Maybe that's "fair and balanced"
To expand on this, please check Joshua Micah Marshall's excellent Feb 2003 piece in the Washington Monthly, called Vice Grip.
It really goes a ways to explaining how Cheney acts, and may serve as a decent companion to the Rolling Stone piece.
I had this post all ready for the "bush was going to invade anyway" thread and my connection died!
I had it readyyyyY!! I . . I . . the car broke down! I didn't have enough money for cab fare! Some old friends came in from out of town! LOCUSTS!!
Great frontline, btw.
"The article is called "Cheney's betting on bad news" and provides an account of where Cheney has socked away more than $25 million. While the figures may be estimates, the investments are not. According to Tom Blackburn of the Palm Beach Post, Cheney has invested heavily in "a fund that specializes in short-term municipal bonds, a tax-exempt money market fund and an inflation protected securities fund. The first two hold up if interest rates rise with inflation. The third is protected against inflation."
Cheney has dumped another (estimated) $10 to $25 million in a European bond fund which tells us that he is counting on a steadily weakening dollar. So, while working class Americans are loosing ground to inflation and rising energy costs, Darth Cheney will be enhancing his wealth in "Old Europe". As Blackburn sagely notes, "Not all bad news' is bad for everybody.""
Dick Cheney epitomizes post-modern politicians and politics.
Policies are essentially non-existent, histories and facts are things to be deconstructed, twisted, ignored, and distorted so that a few individuals may flourish at the expense of everyone else.
One has to wonder if either the VP or the POTUS are really sane. Stupidity can only explain so much.
Clearly, they don't test candidates for sanity, but it does seem that might be a helpful thing to do in future.
It is still amazing how things change over time. Remember when Clinton was subpoenaed by Starr? He was refusing to appear and the Republicans thought that was serious:
Top Republicans Sunday warned President Bill Clinton that refusing to honor independent counsel Ken Starr's grand jury subpoena in the Monica Lewinsky case could have serious political consequences — including the possibility of impeachment.
"I think it would be disastrous. It is basically saying he is above the law, he doesn't have to comply with the law," said Senate Majority Whip Don Nickles of Oklahoma on NBC's "Meet The Press." "Everybody else in America has to comply with subpoenas (while) he's saying he wouldn't. … I don't think that would be sustainable."
"(Clinton) has an obligation as the highest official in this government, sworn to uphold the Constitution and the laws of this country. If he doesn't do that, I think public opinion would turn overwhelmingly against him," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah on CBS's "Face The Nation."
The double standards of the GOP keep on coming.
Because this presumes that Republicans have even any premise of working for the majority of Americans, which they do not. They aren't even giving lip service to it except in campaign ads because they're still not completely comfortable with outright, public and blatant election rigging.
So, have we heard anything from Dick Cheney since the election? Seems like the motherfucker slunk away back to his naval compound to shred, shred, shred. So much for his pre-election predictions. I guess we could have forseen that everything would go the opposite of what he predicted, based on his previous record.
I believe he's gone duck hunting.
;]
Cheney's gathering his army of the undead for the final confrontation.
Whether he properly declassified or not, Cheney decided to out an undercover CIA agent for no counterveiling national gain, but rather to continue the public misperception he created of the basis for the Iraq War, and to exact domestic political vengeance. Wilson's NY Times op-ed would be impugned by claiming that Wilson's wife, not Cheney, sent him to Niger to investigate the "16-words" prior to their insertion in the State-of-the-Union, and that Cheney did not find out the results of Wilson's trip. For that, Cheney compromised a counterproliferation operation of the United States.
quack!
Ya know, if he wasn't doing shit that was illegal, this wouldn't be an issue, now would it?
The bastard is so dirty he can't allow any of this to come to light.
Remind me again -- didn't we fight the commies to protect peoples' human rights and stop bad governments from doing this sort of stuff? Like keeping secret lists, and subverting the truth, and privilege for a select secret few, and lawless detention and all that? I seem to remember something about that. Wasn't that was the Cold War was fought for?
Maybe it was just about the money, after all.
Huh.
But seriously -- since the residence is on a Navy base (of sorts), shurely there's a guest list for VP invitees up at the main gate, even if the list for the house itself is shredded?
I think you'd be wise to pick up one of those shredder-piecer-together machines they have going in East Germany right now, for all those Stasi files.
There's gotta be big business in shredder-piecer-together machines. In all sorts of ways.
Why do you hate secretive war-mongering oligarchies?
I felt a deep foreboding, a sickness in the pit of my stomach in 2000. I'm not a fanatic, but I envisioned the devil marching our way, knew that we were looking at the end of America as we had previously known it. It has become a dark and insidious thing, our government.
somebody needs to FPP this. Anyone? H Dawg?
Go for it if you like, but I'm content to keep updating this thread. I'm picky about what I post to the front page here, and only hurl my finest feces.
I'm really curious as to whether or not whoever we get in the big house next cycle scales back the acquired powers or if they'll make an attempt to keep them. Yes, the powers don't actually exist except in the prez and vice prez heads' but one can't help but think that since no one has called them on it, (and I don't mean us, I mean the people who've got the power to do so, legislative, judicial, hell I'd take a revolt in the executive branch at this point) they've effectively gotten away with it. Who thinks the next president will scale back, go back to the previous status quo? Anyone?
.. why doesn't somebody shoot that fucking asshole?
I've been thinking a lot about this lately - not specifically "why doesn't someone shoot that fucking asshole", but in a more general sense. I tend to mark it off as a spineless American sense of self that is unwilling to risk a life of frivolous capitalism over the soul and lifeblood of the country.
Why put my life on the line when I can wake up tomorrow and drive my shiny new car to my underpaying job in order to pay off a multitude of credit card debt? All I have to do is power up my iPod and I feel connected to mother earth. A dose of high fructose corn syrup soothes the rough edges. At night when I'm lonely and contemplating atrocities of the world, I simply grab the remote and direct my Tivo to replay Americas Got Talent episodes from last month. I laugh. Life is good. I am here, and this is All. Dafur is a name that sounds funny to me, and it doesn't really exist when I walk out the door of my over-sized home. In high school I took a Civics class. Preambles to the Constitution? Amendments? Articles? I live in a Free country, therefore I AM FREE. I do not like the current administration; I think they are harmful and skirting the law. Yet I am lesser than the powers above, so I submit to casting my vote in the next election. That's where my power resides! In the meantime I'll try to ignore him and her and what’s his name... They will simply pass, and in the end my country will still be here just as I always remembered it. Damn straight. Iraq. Iran. Iraq. Iran. Israel. All those god damned I-countries that I cannot identify on the world atlas. Tomorrow is another day. Meet me for lunch outside Starbucks. And if it's raining don't worry, we'll do it again next week. My head hurts, where's my Lunesta???
The problem with us calling bullshit is they can ignore us. Unless we organize and get together and flat out revolt, the peasants will get ignored except for when those who aren't us need us to give their vision of the future legitimacy.
I just got back from a trip to Washington DC. I saw all the sights...Capitol, White House, a half-dozen memorials and monuments, a couple of Nats games...typical tourist stuff.
What I was most looking forward to, though, were the protests against this government. I saw exactly one. Two people were sitting in lawnchairs across the road from the White House. They had a few cardboard signs so busy with pictures and slogans I didn't even know what they were protesting. I think I saw the word "Darfur" in there somewhere.
That was it. That was the full extent of opposition to the US government I witnessed on the entire trip.
They keep you doped with religion, and sex, and TV
There was a protest in DC yesterday that was organized by the ALCU:
‘Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice’ to rally and then call on Congress to restore habeas corpus, fix the Military Commissions Act, end torture and rendition and restore our constitutional rights...
I heard a brief snippet on a random radio news broadcast. They didn't say how many showed up, but they did say thousands of protestors. It sounded great. I wish I had heard of it sooner. I see no mention of it in the usual news outlets.
Personally, I think it's going to take an extreme polarizing event to occur before we see any mass protest and demand for change. What it is, I don't know (surely the loss of life on a grand scale on the other side of the world isn't going to do it). I do think the moment is ripe for such a shift to happen. I smell increasing tension in the air every day. There's too much simmering away to go unchecked. If it does, we're all fucked.
Gee, Rocket, I'm surprised you could see the sights for all the terrerist precautions and security people. The pics sure are different from when I visited in the late 70s.
Sorry Sugar, I think you're mistaking the smell of greed and complacency for that of increasing tension.
We're fucked.
Oops, I meant ACLU above.
GramMa, I feel the same, really I do. But the eternal optimist within me tries to hold on to some sense of hope. What for? That's a question I have yet to answer for myself.
Indeed, I would say that we are being gang raped...
President Bush is not part of his own administration: The executive branch becomes acephalous.
So true. Bushie is part of some other universe, looks like to me. Of course the exec branch has become acephalous. It's being run buy a horse's ASS.
The vice presidency isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss." In modern times, vice presidents have generally been confined to attending state funerals or to distributing blankets after earthquakes.
Hey, Cheney's topped that. His vice presidency isn't worth a pile of shit--hot or cold. And he sure 5ucked the the part about distributing blankets after Katrina. Stole 'em, mostly.
In this case it's not the job that isn't worth the pitcher, it's the feller who holds it.
Even if he doesn't, couldn't we anyway?
Didn't hubris bring down some other political figure?
I had believed him when he said, debating Joseph Lieberman, that he was *against nation building and foreign adventures* somehow. That was pretty much the END of my being gulled by politicians EVAR. If he feels guilty about that, it's only right and fair.
dessertwars until you finishyour dinnerthe ones you've already got.