Full Cheney Panic (Andrew Sullivan)

[struggle4progress]

... Here is a former vice-president, who enjoyed unprecedented power for eight long, long years. No veep ever wielded power like he did in the long history of American government. In the months after 9/11, he swept all Congressional resistance away, exerted total executive power, wielded a military and paramilitary apparatus far mightier than all its rivals combined and mightier than any power in history, tapped any phone he wanted, claimed the right to torture any suspect he wanted (and followed through with thousands, from Bagram to Abu Ghraib) and was able to print and borrow money with impunity to finance all of it without a worry in the world. But even after all that, he cannot tolerate a few months of someone else, duly elected, having a chance to govern the country with a decent interval of grace.

What character does this reveal? The same character that sees torture - torture - as a "no-brainer". The same man who believes that freezing naked prisoners to hypothermia or strapping them to a board for a 175th near-drowning or stringing them up in stress positions so long the shackles rust up is in line with America's constitutional history and custom ...

But does Cheney really believe that in a battle for the judgment of the American people, and for history, he will win a brawl with Colin Powell, with a man who is actually on record early on warning of the dire consequences of weakening or abandoning the Geneva Conventions? ...

They really do want to commit suicide, don't they? Well, I'm not in a rush to stop them.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/05/full-cheney-panic.html

[struggle4progress]

1. The Irrelevant Dick Cheney (Ta-Nehisi Coates / The Atlantic)

... Cheney was once asked about public opinion and polls. Cheney responded that he didn't care. He was lying. I haven't meant a single human being who didn't care what other people thought of him. I don't think Cheney's a sociopath--I think he's a megalomaniac ...

In fact, since the nadir of the Bush-era, Cheney has repeatedly tried to re-inject himself into the public dialogue. The last thing John McCain, running in a general election, needed was a Cheney endorsement. And yet there it was unprompted. And since Obama's entered into the White House, the ex-VP has been going to the public via the press. People who don't care, don't spend their days making their case to the very people who they don't care about ...

http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/05/the_martyr_complex.php

[opihimoimoi]

2. Cheney is evil and selfish beyond redemption...Tell him to get fucked

[grantcart]

3. He is terrified of getting drawn into legal battles

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. I think he was expecting his heart to give up before now.

Sort of his way of turning his nose up at his own mortality. But the joke is on him. He lived to face the music.

[pinto]

4. I think the defection of Colin, whatever his reasons for that, has infuriated Cheney.

[Jade Fox]

11. Apparently, they never got along.....

Cheney hated Powell's popularity and his actual war experience.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

5. Don't make him angry!

He's liable to toss back a few and then shoot you in the face!

[Sequoia]

6. The return of Cotton Mather from hell.

Burn witch burn...Drown, drown, drown. Actually, more like Caligula.

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. If you examine how this period in history affected everything down

to the local governments, it shall forever be remembered as the great Anglo-American grab-fest.

[jtrockville]

9. Powell's no man of integrity either.

Ray McGovern ripped Powell apart last August. Powell still hasn't done anything to redeem himself:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/08/16/11019

[whopis01]

10. Cheney is best described by Rumsfeld

"The dead-enders are still with us, those remnants of the defeated regimes who'll go on fighting long after their cause is lost."

[justinaforjustice]

12. Cheney is a Psychopath.

I've never believed in psychological explanations for history, but in Cheney's case, I think we have substantial evidence from his words and actions that he is truly psychopathic. Indeed, his only real answer to a war crimes prosecution may be an insanity defense.

[DCKit]

13. Will that be the "The Devil made me do it" or the "I couldn't help myself" defense?

At least we'd be able to look forward to six months of riveting entertainment.

Even the (supposed) 21% Republic die-hards will react badly when they finally realize they've been betrayed. Even worse, I expect, if they ever realize they've been supporting and protecting people who couldn't care less if they lived or died.

[Wednesdays]

14. K&R

:kick:

[HCE SuiGeneris]

15. There can be no America holding the torch of Democracy

with the evil that Dick did left unpunished.

[voodoo court]

16. Man Arrested in 2007 Flying Flag Upside Down to Protest Iraq War Produces Anti-Torture Song

Hello, this is my first post here so I'm sorry in advance if I do not do this according to policy. The attached Youtube clip is intended to point out the hyprocy of the Bush/Cheney torture policy, although presented in a humorous manner. This seemed a much safer way to express protest as the last time Mark Kuhn protested he was arrested at his own home in Asheville, North Carolina for flying his flag upside down to protest the Iraq war.

The attached news report details the arrest, and the Youtube video is of the song. The song was recorded in the home studio he was building at the time of his arrest and is now finally completed. You may or may not like the song or the video, but at least in this less overt form of protest, he will most likely avoid arrest and the stink eye of his neighbors he got following the last incident.

Thank you


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYQG5tgvs7A

http://www.mountainx.com/news/2007/080107flag

[Name removed]

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