Capital Vices: Dick Cheney's Casual Relationship With Truth

The unindicted co-conspirator cum-former vice president, who is presently worshipped by the right for "keeping us safe," [even though he vice-presided over the biggest failure to "keep us safe" in American history], who is attempting to foist his truth and integrity challenged daughter Liz upon national politics, none other than Dick Cheney, pulled an Alberto Gonzalez when interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the Valerie Plame Affair, where a CIA agent under cover was outed for the sake of political payback by the Bush Administration.

If you recall, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, was convicted of lying to investigators and obstructing justice in connection with this scandal. When interviewed about Libby's notes, which indicated Libby had learned of Valerie Plame and her identity as an under cover agent for the CIA from Cheney, Cheney would respond to investigators 72 times that he did not recall.

Apparently, lack of memory was epidemic at the Bush White House, which is convenient considering the various acts of incompetence, dishonesty and malfeasance committed there.

Bill Clinton lied under oath in a civil deposition. About an extramarital affair. No one died as a result. Nor was national security compromised in any way. Yet this was the underlying cause of the Republican attempt to unseat him via impeachment and trial by the Senate. To the present day the name Clinton is spat out by conservatives and right wing commentators, largely as a result of this episode.

Dick Cheney lied to Federal investigators about political payback where a CIA agent under cover was outed, and her career ended, because her husband uncovered and made plain the lies of the administration regarding a casus belli which lead us into a war where now 4,276 Americans have been killed, not to mention the untold thousands of innocent Iraqis. Yet the mindlessly hawkish and partisan conservatives will not relent and give up the old criminal, undermining the integrity of the neo-conservative worldview and its criticisms of the Obama Administration, which, incidentally, includes justifying torture and undermining the Constitution because of fear.

And this is the same crowd crowing about "freedom" from medical care, but absolutely swoon over the PATRIOT Act like it's the bees' knees, and love it when the NSA performs warrantless wiretaps in abrogation of the law and all concepts of American justice. Will someone restore some intellectual vigor to conservative thought? Please?

Dick Cheney: You Have the Right to Remain Silent

Former Vice President and potential future war crimes defendant Dick Cheney was back in the news this week, once again preemptively setting out his defense strategy in the rare instance he is actually brought to justice for the abrogations of national and international laws against torture and inhumane treatment. He stated that Attorney General Eric Holder's naming of a special prosecutor to investigate instances of mistreatment of prisoners in American custody. It should be noted that the inquiry is to be limited to instances where the persons conducting the interrogations went beyond the guidelines approved by the Department of Justice.

Dick Cheney's various defenses were as follows:

1) "The Justice Department reviewed all those allegations several years ago."

Apparently, the irony of a politically compromised Department of Justice investigating its bosses is lost on Mr. Cheney. Or was he referring to the various, and Constitutionally dubious, legal opinions of John "Anything You Want" Yoo? It is also a compromised argument as former AG Alberto Gonzalez has just stated that Mr. Holder was doing the right thing in moving forward with this investigation.

2) That American lives were saved.

As I have said ad nauseum in prior posts, efficacy of torture is no defense. In fact, this is a rather disgusting defense, as it is entirely false. Torturing prisoners in our custody hurts American interests, and Americans individually, in the long run. By acting immorally we lose our moral authority, and become yet another nation of barbarians, just like the barbarians we are trying to bring to justice. Our natural allies are less inclined to assist us as we become alienated from them, while causing our enemies to hate us all the more. But Mr. Cheney's myopia or arrogance does not allow him to see this.

It is also untrue. It is an unassailable fact that no actionable intelligence of credible threats were disclosed by any prisoners who were tortured, and rather conventional techniques proved to work far better. The fact the Khalid Sheik Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times is proof that it did not work. If waterboarding did work, I am sure that the number of times KSM was waterboarded would have been somewhere south of 100. Or ten.

It is also logically fallacious, in addition to factually fallacious, that this was the right course of action because there was no other attacks on the United States. But there was Madrid, London, Bali, and over 4,000 dead servicemen in Iraq. And this argument relies on opponents of having to prove a negative. There was also no second Hurricane Katrina, but Mr. Cheney cannot take credit for that.

It should be noted that Mr. Cheney even went so far as to stand by officers and contractors who went beyond the rules approved by the Justice Department. Why would he stand by clear criminal acts? The only reason I can discern is to throw his considerable weight behind them before they are indicted in case they might consider turning State's evidence.

3) The inquiry is "intensely partisan."

Ummm, President Obama does not want this. Diane Feinstein does not want this. Harry Reid does not want this. Nancy Pelosi does not want this. They want to move beyond this, and concentrate on health care reform. Further, none of them want to assist Dick Cheney in the Cyclopean effort to make him into a sympathetic figure.

And there is a double irony in Mr. Cheney's statement: a) it was on Fox News, ['nuff said], and b) his was the most intensely partisan administration in modern history. See: Tom Ridge and his half hearted confession of raising the terrorist threat levels days before the 2004 election for no discernible reason but for political considerations.

However, let this be known: I am unconcerned about the political considerations of the Democratic White House or Congress. Laws were broken, serious laws, and legal comeuppance is required, no matter the convenience. Politicians and bureaucrats and officials and contractors must be forewarned that they will pay a price for their cavalier attitudes towards our laws, and not even the highest officers in the land are to be spared the sword of Lady Justice should her blind scales tip away from them and towards the felonious.

All Mr. Cheney's ado, if this is about nothing, then begs the question: what is he getting at? If everything that occurred under his watch was all hunky-dory, why continue to speak out in his own defense preemptively? Public opinion has zero bearing on whether American laws were broken, and rather, bad actors can tell a jury their sympathetic defense of "keeping Americans safe" and see if they agree. So what is Dick Cheney afraid of?

And allow me to be clear: I don't want the Lindsay Englands of the CIA or private contractors to pay the price alone. I want the higher ups who gave the order.

As I said - maybe they should consider turning State's evidence.

Bush Administration: Manufacturing Fear to Breach the Constitution

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall be issued, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." - 4th Amendment to the Constitution.

The text of the Fourth Amendment is rather plain, unlike some others whose meaning has caused great controversy over the years of our Union.  Yet it is the Fourth Amendment, which arguably limits the power of the government vis a vis the governed more than any other, or at least at its most personal level, has been dealt some mighty blows, perhaps beyond repair. 

Aside from the bevy of terrible caselaw since Prohibition and the War[s] on Drugs, I present to you the most recent, and  outright disturbing news issuing from the intelligence community regarding the and and policies of our late administration.

In addition to manufacturing the threat of Iraq to gain the extra-Constitutional power to wage preemptive war, George W. Bush and friends manufactured threat assessments to gain the extra-Constitutional power to spy on American citizens without seeking a warrant.  And further, it appears that the argument of efficacy, so recently used in defending torture, can't be used this time around because apparently these methods, such as warrantless wiretapping and email interception, did not help very much.

As the Saturday edition of the New York Times, upper right, above the fold, tells: a Congressionally mandated report from the inspectors general of the Department of Justice, the National Security Agency [NSA], the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense and the Office of National Security has been partially released, and it informs us that the secret extrajudicial wiretapping program began shortly after September 11, 2001; it was not handed over to the likes of John Yoo at the Office of Legal Counsel for weeks in order to ascertain its legality; and most damning - the high level officials had difficulty citing specific examples of the wiretapping program contributing to successes against terrorists in the form of either thwarted plots or actual arrests.

In fact, the secrecy surrounding the program was cited as a core reason for its ineffectiveness.

Even more damning, and yet no longer shocking, was the revelation that White House officials had provided paragraphs to analysts working on the terrorist threat assessments, which were then inserted into the threat assessments, in turn used by the White House as justification for its extra legal and extra Constitutional acts.

Of course, seeing that "change" has come to Washington, the article, by Eric Lichtblau and James Risen, was based upon materials which were made available on Friday afternoon - the classic time when material the President wants most people to ignore is made public.

What this means is the the high crimes, the lies, of the Bush White House are even greater than heretofore known.  And the cost to our freedom has yet to come due.

I have, in the recent weeks, seen a lot of material out there on the "con" side of the argument to universal health care, or even against the so-called government option.  A lot of these arguments, hyperbolic or not, seem to center on fear of socialism, and at their worst, that such a thing would be Orwellian in its final form.  I have even heard a resurfaced vinyl record of Ronald Reagan from the '60's say as much.

Yet a lot of the same people would fail to see the very Orwellian ramifications of the overall Bush Administration effort.  I don't think these people actually have read, Orwell, to tell you the truth, because if they did we would have marched in the streets en masse a long time ago.

What the Bush Administration did was secure the ability to make war where it wanted, when it wanted; to be able to seize and imprison anyone sua sponte indefinitely by naming them an enemy combatant, the definition of which it maintained it was the sole arbiter; it could spy on anyone, anywhere, without the very reasonable constraints of the Fourth Amendment; and it successfully politicized the Department of Justice which likely conducted politically motivated prosecutions.

That's terrifying.  

And I am not even bring up the issue of no bid contracts to the firms the Vice President was the former CEO of, or which prominent members of the Executive Branch were shareholders in, or such quaint matters like adherence to The Geneva Conventions, The Convention Against Torture, CIA black sites, and the use of private contractors in the place of either military or intelligence community personnel to perform "enhanced interrogations."

And the real kick in the pants is that these warrantless wiretaps and widespread interception of our emails - that's you and me - added nothing to our national security posture.  In fact, in the words of Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon: "I believe this report shows that their obsession with secrecy and their refusal to accept oversight was actually harmful to U.S. national security, not to mention the privacy rights of law abiding Americans."

And just when you thought the lies and prevarications were over, the Sunday edition of the Times, top right corner, above the fold had this headline:

"CHENEY IS LINKED TO CONCEALMENT OF C.I.A. PROJECT."

It looks like the former Veep, who was unable to keep his mouth closed before Michael Jackson died, ordered the CIA to withhold the existence of an anti-terrorism program from Congress, and kept at it for 8 years.  What this program did, or was about, is still undisclosed.

Now that's freedom!!

Isn't it refreshing that for once all the bad things we've heard about Speaker Nancy Pelosi are not true?

And keeping Congress in the dark for so long could very well have been a breach of law.  But that's nothing new when speaking of the Bushies.

Speaking of illegalities and accountability: the cat might be out of the bag at Justice, which may be to the consternation of President Obama.  For now President Obama has been stalling or backpedaling from investigating possible criminal acts of his predecessors, to at best stay out of the messy results, and at worst so he can have all that power the Bushes stole.

But Eric Holder is doing his best to be the top law enforcement agent in the nation. It was leaked Friday that he is considering assigning a special counsel to investigate the allegations the United States tortures terrorism suspects after September 1, 2001.

If they do, I just pray they don't stop at the Lindy Englands, and go all the way to the top.  I want to see the real perpetrators frog marched for their crimes.  The ones in suits, the ones who fabricated the legalities and the ones who gave the orders.

North Korean Enhanced Interrogation Techniques Successful!

The news out of the Hermit Kingdom (and there is blessed little of that) is that notorious international terrorists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, confessed to their crimes.

The state-run (as in actually state run, not like we have in the United States, where we just call it state run when it reports news we don't want to hear) Korea Central News Agency reported that: "During their trial, they admitted what they did was a criminal act inspired by political motives of isolating and stifling our republic by defiling our human rights situation through fabricated video footage."

It is clear that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea uses only the latest in enhanced interrogation techniques, which are a popular export of her patron state, the People's Republic of China. Most recently, these techniques, culled from the experiences of American POW's who were captured by China during the Korean War, were used to famous effect by the United States of America, under the direction of former Vice President Dick Cheney, on such reputed terrorists as Khalid Sheik Mohammed.*

As is obvious, these techniques, which certainly included stress positions, exposure to extreme heat or cold, hard slaps to the face, threats with dogs, being placed in confined box and then filled with insects, and probably included water boarding were successfully implemented against the terrorists Lee and Ling. Clearly, such dangerous terrorists, when broken using the latest in enhanced interrogation techniques will confess to any crime you need them to in order to secure a conviction at a military tribunal.

At this time we are awaiting comment from former vice President Dick Cheney on the success of the interrogations of Ling and Lee, and how he feels these successes should bear on the policies of the Obama Administration.

*(Yes, this is entirely true. The United States, under George W. Bush, used these techniques which it learned from Communist China.)

Right Wing Lie Machine

It looks like Dick Cheney, not used to this whole "video" thing, cannot keep his pack of lies shuffled properly. So much so he tried to get his daughter, Liz [not the gay one], to help out, to no avail.

As this video from Daily Kos demonstrates, the Cheney Family pasttime is looseness with the truth.

http://www.dailykostv.com/w/001821/

Moving on, it appears that Sean Hannity's soul must have some severe scar tissue on it, as this series of video excerpts lays bare Sean Hannity's utter moral bankruptcy.

http://www.dailykostv.com/w/001818/

That there is anyone I know or related to actually still listens to this man as a source of news or germane opinion shames me.

Part of the reason I get upset over Left/Right politics is that there is so much mendacity on the Right. Sure, there are plenty of liars on the Left. In fact, Speaker Nancy Pelosi may or may not be a liar regarding this CIA flap.

But Sean Hannity is not one representative from one of 435 disctricts. He is a major voice in a party and movement. And he holds himself out to be an arbiter of good and bad, truth and lies.

And he is squarely on the "pants on fire" side of the equation.

I think it has gotten to the point that Hannity is closing in on defamation, as he is knowingly stating false allegations for the sake of purposefully hurting the credibility of a fellow citizen, who just happens to be President. Just a thought.

Powell Strikes Back

In the less and less amusing installments of the GOP intra-party family feud, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, former Secretary of State, and former Bush Administration patsy Colin Powell decided to re-enter the fray, responding to former Vice Boss Dick Cheney.

When we last left these former colleagues, Dick Cheney stated on Face the Nation he preferred Rush Limbaugh's political philosophy to Powell's, stating less than graciously that he had believed that Powell "had left the party.  I didn't know he was still a Republican."

But on Sunday Powell fired back, probably with greater marksmanship than draft dodger Cheney ever possessed, "And Mr. Cheney is misinformed.  I am still a Republican."

This tiff had its genesis in Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama for president.  It should be noted that Secretary Powell was one among a plethora of intellectual conservatives who decided to either back Obama, or who wavered in their endorsement of the McCain-Palin ticket.

It is further complicated by the ideological warfare - social conservatives v. moderates - with the more conservative wing seeking more "purity" at the expense of moving toward the center to garner more supporters.  This "purity" tends to center around the social issues of the right to reproductive choice and equal rights for gays and lesbians.  In very recent history, the party plank on both issues has proved to be an albatross, and moderates wish to focus more on fiscal conservatism and small government.

However, even people I consider to be plain dealers, like Gov. Tim Pawlenty, are disingenuous about the Cheney-Powell row.  As reported in yesterday's New York Times by Adam Nagourney, Mr. Pawlenty was quoted s saying about Powell, "If your indictment of the Republican Party is that it is not mainstream enough, and then the party puts forth somebody who is clearly a mainstream Republican - John McCain for President - and then you leap-frog over him to endorse Barack Obama, that seems about more than being frustrated with the Republican Party not being mainstream enough." 

I don't know exactly where Mr. Pawlenty was going with this, but he may have been alluding to race being a factor, as Rush Limbaugh had.  However, the 10,000 lb elephant [pun intended] in the room he is ignoring is the nomination of Sarah Palin as running mate for Sen. McCain.  It was her vast and obvious shortcomings, not Mr. McCain, that drove Mr. Powell, as well as many of the more intellectual, less religious member of the party to defect.

The fact is that Sarah Palin was the polarizing agent in the Presidential election.  She is of the social conservative wing of the party where religiosity and fanatical adherence to failed social policies [like abstinence] are more highly prized than deep thoughts on geopolitics or Constitutional law.  That Mrs. Palin failed famously when she was interviewed by Katie Couric, namely by being unprepared to answer relatively simple questions for a Vice Presidential candidate and revealing herself to be little more than a pretty face versed at the art of petty insults, was what drove the likes of Peggy Noonan, as well as Colin Powell, among many others Republicans, to endorse the Democratic ticket.

So, it appears that the GOP has a lot more soul searching to do, as the very thing that caused a veritable brain drain on the right side of the aisle, Governor Sarah Palin, has not been reduced in stature, but rather is the present GOP front runner for 2012.

Think about it in these terms: the Sarah Palins of the GOP are seeking to supplant the Colin Powells.  

If they had any brains left, the Powells should run for it.

Right and Wrong, Not Left or Right

Thursday was the duel of ideals, the new sherrif and the old gunfighter, white hat v. black hat. But the one thing it wasn't, no matter how the press has portrayed it, was a battle of the left v. right. It was undeniably, a battle of the right v. wrong.  It was the President against the former Vice and his myriad vices.

In his speech at the National Archives, before an original copy of the sacred document of our national formation, Mr. Obama took the hard look at the sins of our collective past under the administration of George W. Bush that most have been unable or unwilling to take. He called them out on their fears and fear mongery, on their shortcuts made out of panic, and the shortsightedness of those shortcuts, and how those shortcuts actually continue to hurt us now. And one of those shortcuts was the creation of an extra-legal sysem of detention and trial of suspected terrorists we now know as Guantanamo Bay.

Mr. Obama called for a return to the core values that make our nation great, our civil liberties the envy of the world, and to those aspects of our genesis that make our nation the greatest and most prosperous now and in history. He made the case that it was our collectively turning our back on those values, such as Constitutional rights for all, our fair trials, our Justice System, and the Rule of Law, all for the sake of expediency out of fear, that created many of the problems he is dealing with today.

Mr. Obama was right to say that our core values, our rights, are not luxuries, but the very strength of our nation. To those who gainsay, I respond: America, pal - love it or leave it; this is what it means when you say 'freedom isn't free.' It means not being afraid. It means standing up for the little guy, or more importantly, the guy whose guts you hate. When you protect their rights, only then can you feel a little secure in your own.

He was also brave, in these times where the efficacy of a war crime is being seriously discussed as a possible defense, to categorically reject waterboarding as a method of interrogation. Huzzah!

In short, Mr. Obama told Americans to get back to being Americans, like we were before W. turned us against each other and against the Constitution.

Mr. Cheney's speech, by contrast, sought to justify his extra and illegal actions at every turn, evincing what I gather to be his increasing dread that he might not as above the law as he once thought. He sunk to a new low when he stated that criticism of his "enhanced interrogation" was defaming the men who tortured prisoners at his order, which is an Orwellian distortion of the facts, seeing as these "heroes" were likely private contractors, or, to not put too fine a point on it, mercenaries.  I didn't know mercenaries, much less people who can stomach simulating drowning another person, are entitled to be called heroes.

Moving further with Orwellian doublespeak, Mr. Cheney compared his almost certain criminal liability, and any investigation of same by the Obama Administration, as such: 

"It's hard to imagine a worse precedent, filled with more possibilities for trouble and abuse, than to have an incoming administration criminalize the policy decisions of its predecessors."

So, Mr. Cheney, you should get a pass for the authorizing and the actual ordering of war crimes because it is a bad precedent?  Because torture was merely a policy consideration?  Have you no decency?

This is a classic non sequitur argument, literally, that the argued result does not follow from the premise.  Last time I check "It was only a policy" was no defense at the Nuremburg Trials.   Just saying.

Rather, waterboarding has been called torture, and been held to be torture, under American Law [!!] for more decades than Cheny has lived. Yet, as we Americans are poor students of history, many will simply take the ex-Vice at his word, no matter what abominations the forked tongue of his flicks out of his mouth. He who controls the past might control the future, but not today, and not on my watch.

Significantly, while he spoke of documents to support his fallacious defense that torture prevented terrorist attacks, he failed to set forth what these documents were, or, in fact, what they contained. Yet, while he still had the chance, he never leaked such documents, unlike his leaking of the name of a certain CIA agent under cover when that was politically expedient. Getting erratic in retirement?

Actually, Mr. Cheney is a skilled political fighter. He has nothing to lose, so he is purposefully going after Obama to weaken him, which is vanity taken to new heights. He is using two very effective, though logically fallacious, methods. 

One is to state that Mr. Obama is weakening America and making us vulnerable to another attack. Therefore, when another attack does happen, which, in all likelihood it will at some point, he will be seen as prophetic. But this is really a case of a broken clock being correct twice a day.  I can state that it will rain tomorrow every day does not me a weatherman when by coincidence it does precipitate. 

Second, he is using the contents of certain documents, whose existence is at best dubious, to defend himself on the question of the authorization of illegal torture. Since these documents probably do not exist, when they are not produced he can then state that Mr. Obama is refusing to release them. However, the essential point he is avoiding is that expediency or efficacy are no defense to a war crime.

It is also noteworthy that Mr. Cheney has gone to the family well in recent days, having his daughter Liz go on the Faux News circuit to defend Daddy. That means he must be really scared of being prosecuted for war crimes. Seriously, who gives a rat's posterior what his daughter thinks? Who the Hell is she? At best a charcter witness during Cheney's sentencing phase.  If only..........

AND YET, PRESIDENT OBAMA GOT IT WRONG, TOO

Mr. Obama, saddled with the extra-legal baggage of his predecessors, is apparently at a loss at what to do with the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay that are really likely terrible people who only want to do their best to destroy our nation, or at the very least kill Americans en masse.  I surmise that he believes that the cases against likes of Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who were likely tortured, as well as much "evidence" against them and others was obtained through illegal means, are indelibly tainted, and a criminal conviction might be impossible, no matter the setting - civilian or military proceedings alike.

Therefore, Mr. Obama has endorsed a terrible, and illegal, plan to keep these prisoners confined, without trial, forever and anon.  Such a result is not acceptable.  There is zero provision in any law or anywhere in the Constitution, for such a result, and I am calling out President Obama to figure out a legal way to deal with this.

It is unacceptable for him to go for the type of expedient solution the prior occupants of the White House used.  Lime it or not, these poor excuses for human beings are still entitled to a trial.

Know Them By The Words That Come Out of Their Mouths

Due to my recent schedule, I had to drive for an extended time again this morning. Which meant my senses were assaulted for the third morning in a row by the political ad of Mayor Steve Lonergan, attacking his fellow Republican candidate for New Jersey governor, who I believe is Chris Christie.

This ad makes much hay out of Mr. Christie's statement to "Know people by their words" and then goes on to attack him for not being sufficiently aggressive in cutting taxes, for recognizing that Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, and concluding he is not a conservative.

So, I will judge Mr. Lonergan's campaign by his words, which inexorably leads me to the conclusion that conservatism has been reduced to tax cuts and opposition to womens' reproductive rights, no matter what.

That's it? Because those are your words.

Sure, who doesn't want to pay less taxes? But what about other considerations, like balancing budgets and fiscal strength and responsibility? What about schools, roads, and the common good, in general? Not conservative enough?

And then there is the tired old saw of abortion. Really, can conservatives just get out of the bedroom, and out of the womb. What? Two Supreme Court decisions on abortion aren't enough? What, you want some more do-overs?

Abortion is the the right what gun control is the left: an albatross.

How about working to make abortion less necessary? Assisting in making adoptions easier? In counseling more young single mother's to be, and supporting health care for them and their children in utero? Because you are not winning the argument now.

Seriously, in brief, this continued cynical attempt to thwart the lawful process by appointing judges of certain predispositions on the Supreme Court, only so they can toss nearly 40 years of precedence out the window is truly myopic. And they complain about judicial activism!

Anyway, moving on, my next target is once again, the man who would love to be Darth Vader, Dick Cheney [sorry, Darth]. This guy just cannot shut his trap. He spent eight years hiding from the press in a secure, undisclosed location, refusing to tell his bosses, [us], who he spends his time with, and coming up with nefarious plans to poke holes in the Constitution. The man blocked his house on Google Earth!! Now he cannot find a microphone he doesn't vomit his stupidity into.

Apparently, according to Politico's Ben Smith, Mr. I Had Other Priorities So I Got Five Deferments While Nearly Sixty-Thousand Fellow American Boys Died For The War I Supported has poured forth this gem from the gullet of Hell that is his mouth:

""Everybody's in a giant conspiracy to achieve a different objective than the one we want to achieve," Cheney said. The negotiations are "bound to fail unless we are perceived as very credible" in threatening military action against Iran, he said."

So, Dick has finally been revealed to be the paranoid-in-need-of-serious-meds that he truly is, and further, his war mongery knows no bounds. Back in 1971 Black Sabbath wrote a poignant song, and Dick Cheney fits the bill. As sung in War Pigs:

"Politicians hide themselves away. They only started the war. Why should they go out to fight? They lead their own to the boar."

Mr. Cheney failed to see the wrongheadedness in the misadventure in Southeast Asia; he failed to anticipate anything but a smooth invasion and occupation in Iraq [as if history would teach anything but]; and he now calls for intimidating Iran into giving up their nuclear ambitions. This guy should quit while he is still in double digits in poll ratings.

Let's see: the Bush administration's hard line on Iran and North Korea bore so much fruit that we could almost have enough to paint a still life. In that time the Hermit Kingdom, which lacks enough oil to keep the lights on in Pyongyang over night, went from zero nuclear weapons to about six, and actually exploded one small one [though it might have been a dud]. They also were so terrified of Dick Cheney they launched several long range missiles, happily all of which were dreadful failures. And Iran went from being the pariah nation in its region to veritable non-nuclear regional superpower.

Who would have thunk taking out the biggest counterweight to Iran in a vain war of choice would have upset the regional balance of power? That's almost more difficult to divine than a hurricane over-topping the levies. Except you can't control hurricanes, which is unlike whether or not you choose to invade a country that never attacked you.

With geopolitical skills like this Dick Cheney's talents were wasted as Vice President. He should have gone out for something more challenging, like firearms safety instructor. Err, whoops. Maybe dog catcher.

Somebody please indict this war criminal just so he will have an attorney tell him to shut up and not incriminate himself any further!!

Finally, I would like to point out that if Mr. Cheney would actually have liked to intimidate the Iranians militarilly, it would have been nice for him to have not handed the incoming administration two land wars in Asia. You know what they say about land wars in Asia.

As today is thursday, I am going for the trifecta, and the third victim of the Witchhunt is the newspaper I love and hate equally, the New York Times.

Today, in the Op-Ed section there was an editorial about an amendment to a credit card bill which permits visitors to national parks to opening carry firearms.

Initially, my response to this is "So what?" Firstly, it's not as if the bill permits the open carrying of firearms in Times Square [not that I would mind so much]. It's in a National Park. And not that it is a prime concern, but at times there are animals that might need a little more than the usual incentive to stay away. And of course, there is the most dangerous animal one might encounter in a national park: Man.

And then the writer begins to get truly shrill, failing to make a cogent argument, and rather, descended into the logical fallacy of the red herring:

"And why should the national parks, which are supposed to be peaceful preserves, be filled with loaded AK-47's and other war weapons?"

Apparently, the writer of this incredibly stupid Op-Ed piece has no idea what they are talking about, and decided to mask this by going straight for the hyperbole. What if a law abding citizen just wanted to carry his trusty old shotgun? Would that be okay with you, Mr. or Ms. Shrill?

And when you thought it couldn't get worse, it does. Continuing:

"The gun lobby already has poisoned the proposal to let the District of Columbia have a voting representative in the House. The Senate's gun lackeys tacked on a vindictive amendment to strip the district of basic gun control powers, inviting assault and sniper rifles designed for military battlefields into homes and businesses."

Hmm, let's break this one down a little bit. The first clause of the second sentence uses "vindictive", as if the gun lobby, or anyone else, had a score to settle with D.C. What, I don't know. Maybe someone just needed a cool sounding word to sex up the sentence.

Then the writer goes into "inviting assault and sniper rifles designed for militarybattlefields into homes and businesses." First off, why lump assault and sniper weapons together? These are totally different types of weapons, for different uses. Further, most sniper rifles are modified bolt action sporting rifles. This truly evinces the total ignorance of the author, who is more interested in fancy words than reality. And the use of such sporting weapons in crimes is so minimal as to approach nil.

Next, I continue to take umbrage at the term "assault rifle." I dare anyone, especially those in favor of their banishment, to come up with a workable definition of an assault rifle. Truly, an assault rifle is more of a chimera than anything. And the fact tht the ignorant bandy around the phrase is what chills the lawful gun owners in America.

Moving on, the phrase "designed for military battlefields" is clumsy, as well as extraneous. Are there any other types of battlefields? And what does their design have to do with the issue at hand, which is lawful ownership? Doesn't every single police and sherrif's department in the country have such weapons? And for what reason? Because those are what modern firearms are comprised of. I fail to find any actual argument underneath these explosive words.

However, such weapons like the aforementioned AK-47, as well as other similar semi-automatic rifles, are ideal for home and business defense. Which brings me to the third clause: "into homes and businesses."

It would seem that the writer at the Times has abandoned any pretext, such as 'put these weapons on the street' or 'in the hands of criminals' and instead have gone after lawful ownership of weapons for home and business protection. As if such ownership is not an individual right guaranteed under the Second Amendment to the Consitutition, and pursuant to the recent Heller decision. As if such ownership is a bad thing.

And this piece castigates the 27 Democratic Senators that voted for it. Ummmm, helloooo New York Times!! If you would take a second and come down from your ivory tower it would be obvious that the Democrats control Congress largely because of the election of centrists who favor gun rights, not bans.

Honestly, this is why people hate the New York Times.

Know them by their words, indeed.

Will the Real Mr. Cheney Please Shut Up

It has come to my attention that former Vice President Dick Cheney has been anything but the retiring type in his retirement, much to the consternation of the rest of the GOP. It appears that Mr. Cheney just can't help himself, seeing as his run at the top, or next to the top, or as puppet master for the top, was an abject failure, and he wants the rest of us to learn what he now knows.

No, we all know that isn't true. Rather, this is Mr. Cheney desperately trying to restore, or protect, or whatever you want to call it, his "legacy." Dick, your legacy will be one of shame and ignominy.

The record: when times were good your met with you buddies in secret, also known as the Energy Task Force, and went to the SUPREME COURT to prevent anyone from knowing who was there. That's about the best thing you did in your most recent stint in the executive branch. It all went downhill from there.

Let us fast forward: after nine months in office, it was on your watch, Mr. Vice President, that this nation suffered the worst terrorist attack in the history of the world. Not the nation, not the hemisphere, not the century. The world.

And the thing is, I can forgive that. We cannot prevent what I term "extreme human action," which are acts so unfathomable we would never expect the depravity, committed by people so dedicated that no normal stopgaps would prevent it. These are the mass murderers, the suicide bombers, and even the serial killers. All we can do is be vigilant and go on with our lives.

But you, Mr. Cheney, decided to use this as a multifold opportunity to try out your "neato" theory of the Unitary Executive, otherwise known as rule by fascist fiat, ie.: you must do what I say simply because I am the President, and am accountable to no one. I must have missed that chapter in Con-Law. I never found that in Article II, either.

In so doing you contributed to botching one war, [Afghanistan, which has now spread to a second country. You must be so proud......], and lied your way into Iraq. Which, we all know, was your personal reason for becoming VP - to correct the mistakes of the first President Bush. Oh, and enriching your buddies in the Energy Task Force. Ten dollar a barrel oil and all that........

Well, we all know that this really didn't work out so hot. No, we weren't attacked again, but Madrid, London, and Bali were, and nearly 5,000 American soldiers died for your avarice. Really, you shouldn't have. No, I really mean that you shouldn't have invaded Iraq, which in itself was a war crime.

I HATE comparing people to the fascists of the past, but you mimic those guys so well, like you were reading the Nazi Cliff Notes: complain that the other nation is going to attack you, ergo you must attack them pre-emptively, and when your own people complain, denounce them as traitors. I had my own family call me a traitor, Mr. Cheney, a phenomenon that spread nationwide because of you and your fanciful mushroom clouds. All of us want to personally thank you for that.

Mr. Cheney, you were dreadfully wrong about Saddam Hussein. Why should we ever listen to you now?

Now to my point: it has come to the fore that Dick Cheney was THE guy authorizing torture. I will save my vitriol for all the troglodytes with their baloney theories related to Jack Bauer for another post, so suffice it to say that torture is always wrong, and it is against the law. Not a little bit against the law. A lot a bit against the law. There is no defense for torture, unlike homicide, which might be justifiable in self defense. The domestic and international laws on torture, to which the United States is a signatory and are therefore the LAWS OF THE LAND, provide no "I was afraid" or "we thought he knew where the bomb was" defense. Such tried and lame excuses like "I was only following orders" are explicitly rejected in the law.

Hence, it becomes clear Mr. Cheney is trying to re-frame the issue for his benefit. But the law does not recognize this issue, namely that a Vice President or even the President can do ANYTHING in the defense of the nation and escape accountability. Such are not the powers delegated in Article II of the Constitution. Rather, it is not that nation the President swears to defend against all enemies foreign and domestic, it is the Constitution. Tell it to the jury, I say.

So here comes Mr. Cheney, out of the secure spider hole he spent the last 8 years, to say that we are in danger of attack because Mr. Obama is weak, and makes us look weak, etc. Actually, by authorizing torture, Mr. Cheney made us look weak. It is the weak minded, the bullied, that resort to torturing those smaller and weaker than them. And Mr. Cheney is a classic case of this - turning the immense power of his office upon dozens of men, many of them innocent of anything, in the form of torture, for the sake of his own fear - a fear of appearing weak, I surmise.

With poll numbers so low that I know some pitchers with higher Earned Run Averages, Cheney comes out of his hole, spouting this garbage. He also spouts some other garbage about how there are two other memos which show that his transgressions of international law and common morality yielded actionable intelligence. Really? Is that the standard? What happened to "Give me liberty or give me death?" and the more apropos "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." If only Messrs Henry and Franklin could see us now, they would weep.

Not to mention what happened to the good conservative concepts of "limited government" and "law and order"? I guess that those quaint phrases are just window dressing for "seeking complete power at any and all costs."

Now, seeing as I have demolished Dick Cheney's street cred both in and out of the GOP, I cannot understand why he would say on a radio show the other day that the GOP should not moderate, as "This is about fundamental beliefs and values and ideas ... what the role of government should be in our society, and our commitment to the Constitution and Constitutional principles."

Really?

Haven't I, some dumb schmuck with a blog just demonstrated that there is no principle in or out of the Constitution, or everyday morality, that Dick Cheney wouldn't chuck out the window if he thought he could make himself look tougher?

And, Dick, last time I checked during the election, your parties' principles had a lot to do with calling a fellow American a terrorist because he had a funny name. How'd that work out for ya?

When is someone in the GOP going to tell the war criminal that is Dick Cheney to quit while he is behind, so maybe they can have a chance to win an election? Can't they just find him another undisclosed location where he can cower in fear while the rest of us go on with our lives.

And with a little luck, and some pelotas in Washington, maybe Dick will be spending the rest of his in a 6'x6'. The law says he should.

If only we would follow the law.