CAP WEINBERGER IS DEAD

[MADem]

MSNBC just reported it. No additional details yet available.

[LynneSin]

1. It reminds me of a poem from Bloom County

The wind doth taste of bittersweet,
Like jasper wine and sugar.
I bet it's blown through others' feet,
like those of...

[LynneSin]

2. dupe

dupe

[stop the bleeding]

3. news breaking left and right today n/t

[bluestateguy]

4. Anyway...

Did you hear that Lindsay Lohan is going to be in the new Wonder Woman movie?

I can't wait!

Oh, is anything good on Animal Planet tonight?

[grytpype]

5. I bet he died just to distract us from the Andy Card resignation.

Rove is behind it obviously.

[NVMojo]

22. Andy Card resigned!? I missed that! Whoa!

[havocmom]

6. Who will be the thrid?

If The Custodian James Baker goes next, bushco is gonna have some trouble. Who will be their clean up man? Rove is too high profile and way too messy.

[Norquist Nemesis]

10. Possibly Ford

All we need is another week's worth of 24/7 coverage of a former president.

[BR_Parkway]

7. And my first thought was "what did he know" and "suspicious

circumstances?"

Geeze, gimme a gov't I dont automatically assume the worst of anymore.

[MADem]

8. He was 88 years old

The Iran-Contra KING!! He was the guy who said "I ain't going down alone--you send me up the river, I'm takin' the resta you baaaaastids wid' me!!!"

[wicket]

11. Which is why Poppy pardoned him

It always pissed me off so much that Clinton got so much flack for pardoning Mark Rich when all of the guys Poppy pardoned right before he left office would have IMPLICATED him in crimes :grr: :grr:

[MADem]

14. Oh yeah, and Cap made NO BONES ABOUT IT

He told the media, anyone who would listen, that he was ready to sing like a goddamned canary if he had to. They didn't call that sumbitch "Cap the Knife" simply for his cost-cutting skills. That mutha was RUTHLESS.

If Clinton had pardoned NO ONE, he would have gotten flack for not using the authority. No matter what Clinton did, he was gonna catch crap, just because of his CLENIS. The GOP get so angry when someone else is getting some. But as for pardons, Presidents have that little perk, and they can use it. If the friken people don't like it, they can change the law.

[Catherine Vincent]

17. Did this guy really say that?

Wow! Wish I had paid attention to politics back then.

[MADem]

21. It might not have been those precise words, but the tone, sentiment

and meaning were exactly that.

Excellent background, here: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/29/reviews/iran-pardon.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

I urge everyone to familiarize themselves with this case, because I predict we'll see more of this with Bush the Minor!!! Will Libby, or Lay, get Xmas Eve pardons as well?? Time will tell.

[Tesha]

9. Did somebody make sure to drive an oaken stake through his heart?

Did somebody make sure to drive an oaken stake through his
heart so he stays dead?

Way too many of the Reagan/Bush undead have come back to
haunt us!

Tesha

[reichstag911]

12. Good riddance.

:bounce:

[Vickers]

13. He might be doing some explaining right about now.

:eyes:

[paul_fromatlanta]

15. I can't believe the posts gloating over somebody's death.

[MADem]

16. Gloating??? The guy was a rip-roaring bastard on every level

We aren't talking the passing of Mother Theresa, here. The guy played rough, he was old, and he died. What, we aren't supposed to mention his decisive, covered-up role in Iran-Contra, the way he cut the balls off of any flag or general officer who questioned him or suggested alternative strategies, or any of his other nefarious deeds?

[paul_fromatlanta]

18. My post was not specific to this person. Gloating over someone's death in

My post was not specific to this person. Gloating over someone's death is a very very sad thing to engage in and reflects badly on the gloaters.

[MADem]

20. But who was gloating? A fair retrospective of the guy's life is not

"gloating." He was NOT a nice man, he did lasting damage to our nation.

You can't toss out one of those "some people" stinkbombs, and then refuse to call them out.

[paul_fromatlanta]

26. First, sorry for the delay in response

I had to go to work.

Second I decided not to "call individuals out" because I was trying to be constructive not looking for a fight. That is also why I addressed my post to the OP rather than one of the response.

But in general, saying that they are glad someone is dead or suggesting driving a stake through the heart is what I was talking about. That's quite different than giving one's opinion of how Weinberger handled the cold war or Iran Contra etc.

[SteppingRazor]

19. Aw, nuts. I liked Cap.

He wasn't like most political sorts. He didn't try to be your friend to your face while stabbing you in the back. Casper Weinberger was unrepentant pond scum. He was a raging asshole with, to steal a line from Hunter Thompson, all the morals of a weasal on speed. But unlike his ilk in Washington, he understood and accepted this fact. He never tried to be other than he was -- an utterly amoral apparatchik with a belly so full of hate that he occasionally had to excuse himself at cabinet-level mettings in order to go to the bathroom and puke up a viscous, oily substance that scientists later identified as "pure evil." Only Weinberger could, without even a slight hint of irony, pen a book titled "Fighting for Peace."

Being on the opposite side of the political fence from a guy like Weinberger was reassuring -- it let you know that, no matter what, you were surely on the side of goodness and decency. None of the boys in D.C. today offer this same sort of viceral enjoyment. I'll miss the bastard. He was our own real-life Dr. Strangelove. If heroes are measured by the strength of the adversity they face, then a villain like Weinberger made heroes of us all.

[radio4progressives]

25. Well, I guess this is one way to look at it.. there's truth to these words

especially in light of what the hell we're seeing in Washington these days.. don't know our enemies from our foes anymore - too many that are supposed to be on our side, (dems) is carrying water for this administration's fascists policies.. maybe it's been that way all along and i just never "got it" until recently. :shrug:

[dad]

23. Betcha he'll make a very friendly ghost

[Crazy Guggenheim]

24. Here's a link.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/am-weinberger0329,0,5670961.story?coll=ny-leadnationalnews-headlines

[Joey Liberal]

27. No big loss. One less. n.t