EVERYONE WANTS TO DUMP THE LUMP!
OK, I didn't writing any theme message across "MY CHENEY", so you just go right ahead and place your mouse cursor on it and "Pop!" it open to its' full 16 inch square view, save it some where and then exercise your own creative juices on it. Just be sure to let me know and see what you come up with. It was bear to prepare!
I Know This Doesn’t Sound nice. I know it doesn’t sound eloquent, but after all they have done to America, and all they would like to do; while they’re crawling around on the ground squirming to get away; I say let’s kick the crap out them; beat em with a big Impeachment stick until they slink off in the wilds of Wyoming or slither into some Texas brush that needs cut, or if we’re lucky maybe they’ll get hauled away in wagon with orange fatigue, or get a free trip to the Hague. How’s that for “political correctness” and compassion?
THERE IS NOTHING POLITICALLY CORRECT ABOUT THIS POST FROM BEGINNING TO END; SO ENJOY!
George W. Bush's presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace.
Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents.
And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.
Former Nixon White House counsel John W. Dean writes on Findlaw.com:
If anyone doubts that Bush, Cheney, Rove and their confidants are planning an 'October Surprise' to prevent the Republicans from losing control of Congress, then he or she has not been observing this presidency very closely. . . .
One possibility is that Dick Cheney will resign as Vice President for 'health reasons,' and become a senior counselor to the president.
And Bush will name a new vice president - a choice geared to increase his popularity, as well as someone electable in 2008. It would give his sinking administration a new face, and new life.
SHOULD CHENEY BE NEXT?
Even as skittish White House aides brace for another wave of staffing shuffles this week, the bar is being dramatically raised on what sort of personnel move would be needed to actually turn things around for the Bush presidency.
A major newspaper and one of the most pro-Bush voices in punditry are now suggesting that nothing short of removing Vice President Cheney really stands a chance.
The Los Angeles Times editorial board writes: "If President Bush hopes the 'shake-up' of his administration initiated last week will re-energize his listless presidency, he's bound to be disappointed. A far more audacious makeover is needed -- one that sends Vice President Dick Cheney into early retirement."
June 26, 2007 at 07:56:45
If Dems Won't Oust Cheney, GOP Has Plan
by Rob Kall Page 1 of 1 page(s)
http://www.opednews.com-/
Sally Quinn has written an Op-ed in the washington post, A GOP Plan To Oust Cheney which suggests Cheney’s time as VP may be short. It’s gratifying to note that the scenario she describe is almost identical to the one I’ve been predicting for almost a year.
The big question right now among Republicans is how to remove Vice President Cheney from office. Even before this week's blockbuster series in The Post, discontent in Republican ranks was rising.
As the reputed architect of the war in Iraq, Cheney is viewed as toxic, and as the administration's leading proponent of an attack on Iran, he is seen as dangerous. As long as he remains vice president, according to this thinking, he has the potential to drag down every member of the party -- including the presidential nominee -- in next year's elections.
Removing a sitting vice president is not easy, but this may be the moment. I remember Barry Goldwater sitting in my parents' living room in 1973, in the last days of Watergate, debating whether to lead a group of senior Republicans to the White House to tell President Nixon he had to go. His hesitation was that he felt loyalty to the president and the party. But in the end he felt a greater loyalty to his country, and he went to the White House.
Today, another group of party elders, led by Sen. John Warner of Virginia, could well do the same. They could act out of concern for our country's plummeting reputation throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East.
For such a plan to work, however, they would need a ready replacement. Until recently, there hasn't been an acceptable alternative to Cheney -- nor has there been a persuasive argument to convince President Bush to make a change. Now there is.
Quinn suggests that Bush and the Republicans have not had a good replacement for Cheney—Giuliani’s too New York social liberal, Romney’s a Mormon and McCain’s campaign put Bush off too much with the conflict/competition. But she says Fred Thompson could be the knight in shining armor who could remove one of the most toxic elements of the Republicans’ horrible public image.
She writes that installing him as vice president could help set him up as a stronger candidate for the 2008 presidency, and could act to put a damper on Bush’s “button” moments. Quinn concludes;
Cheney is scheduled this summer for surgery to replace his pacemaker, which needs new batteries. So if the president is willing, and Republicans are able, they have a convenient reason to replace him: doctor's orders. And I'm sure the the vice president would also like to spend more time with his ever-expanding family.
I don’t think the dems will allow Bush to appoint a potential presidential candidate as vice president. Why would they allow the Republicans to have a leg up in the presidential race.
A more likely scenario is for Bush to appoint a senior—very senior—leader of the conservative hierarchy as vice president—even his own father or perennial Republican rescue ranger James Baker. Matter of fact, James Baker might be perfect, except that he might find himself in a position where he would decide to take a run for the presidency.
It will be tough to find a Republican who is both respected, who can actually HELP Bush and the nation, and for whom a run for the presidency is definitely off the table. But that could be the biggest impediment to helping Bush reach the point where he encourages Cheney to accept that note from the doctor saying he needs to retire.
It’s likely that before this scenario unfolds, Harry Reid will vet the replacement Bush has in mind. It’s unlikely Bush will proceed without some confidence that he can replace Cheney without a big fight in congress. He’s already been embarassed enough by his growing lame duck status.
Still, as more and more ugly, embarassing, Republican-party-damaging dirt comes out on Cheney, THE WALKs to Bush’s office, like the one Goldwater led to Nixon, will be happening with greater and greater frequency.
There will be building pressure to dump Cheney, not only from the Republicans. I’d be surprised if the current count of eight members of congress who have signed on to Kucinich Cheney impeachment bill doesn’t climb to ten in the next week or two. With the Dem failure to stop the war, one way to placate unhappy Democratic voters is to throw them the Cheney bone.
Throw US the Cheney Bone; throw it, and then we can focus on the other slab of beer fed raw meat in the White House. I’m hungry!
Cheney's Ouster Is Key to U.S. Survival
A number of senior U.S. policymakers responded instantaneously to Lyndon LaRouche's April 20 document, "World System on Weimar Collapse Curve," with shocked recognition that their own timetable for a major, top-down political shakeup of the Bush White House, was way off the mark. LaRouche's highlighting of the Weimar-style hyperinflationary spike in primary commodity prices over the past 16 months (see EIR, April 28, 2006), and his forecast that the present global financial system cannot survive the third quarter of 2006 without a major change in policy, suddenly pushed the issue of Vice President Dick Cheney to the top of the strategic agenda.
LaRouche zeroed in on Cheney at the start of his April 27 international webcast, published in full in this issue. After walking the audience through the documentation of the strategic commodities price explosion, LaRouche declared: "This means that the present system is finished! And it's finished this year, unless dramatic interventions to radically change the situation are made by the U.S. government. Which means you've got to get the nerd out of the White House. And Cheney first."
LaRouche continued: "Cheney, I understand, could be in deep trouble, this week, or next week. It's already in process. There's no chance this nation would survive, number one, unless we change the composition of the Presidency. Because this President will never do what's required. He hasn't got the brains to do it, and he'd be 'agin it'—sort of like the Mortimer Snerd of the White House.
"And if Cheney's not out, it's not possible to make the kind of changes that are required, which are changes that are consistent with what Franklin Roosevelt began to do in early March of 1933, at the time of his inauguration. Unless we go back to Franklin Roosevelt, and do it this year, this nation is not going to make it. We're going to Hell—and we're going to take the rest of the world with us."
Fortunately, there are some signs that there is renewed momentum to dump the Vice President. For the first time, senior Washington sources report that a faction inside the Bush White House itself is pressing for Cheney's ouster. There is some speculation that Karl Rove, President Bush's senior political strategist, has now joined the "Dump Cheney" bandwagon. If that proves true, the consequences for the Veep could be politically deadly.
The Fitzgerald Grand Jury
On April 26, Rove made his fifth appearance before Independent Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's Alexandria, Va. grand jury investigation of the "outing" of CIA official Valerie Plame. According to news accounts and government sources, Rove's attorney recently received a "target" letter from Fitzgerald, indicating that the senior Presidential aide is likely to be indicted—for perjury and/or obstruction of justice. Government sources have told EIR that Rove's testimony could be vital, in shaping whether the Independent Counsel probe remains focussed on the Vice President and his top aides, or whether it broadens to include top Oval Office and National Security Council personnel. These sources indicate that the pace of the Fitzgerald probe was greatly accelerated, as the result of recent court filings by attorneys for indicted former Cheney chief-of-staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Libby's lawyers indicated that they intend to call Rove as a defense witness when the case goes to trial early next year.
Other well-placed Washington sources indicate that there has been a significant rift between Rove and Cheney, since early in the 2004 re-election campaign, when Rove floated the idea of dumping Cheney from the ticket, due to the Vice President's growing unpopularity. These sources suggest that Rove has already provided the Independent Counsel with damning evidence about Cheney's personal role in leaking the identity of Plame, who in addition to being a CIA officer, is the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV.
The Rove-Cheney-Fitzgerald drama took on even greater significance on April 27, when Federal Judge Reggie Walton issued a 31-page opinion, denying Libby's motion to dismiss the indictment. Libby's lawyers had argued that the appointment of Fitzgerald as Independent Counsel had been unconstitutional. Judge Walton's ruling shot down all of Libby's arguments, in stark language: "The integrity of the rule of law," Judge Walton wrote, "which is a core ingredient of the American system of government, is challenged to the greatest degree when high-level government officials come under suspicion for violating the law.... For obvious reasons, the Attorney General recused himself and the Deputy Attorney General concluded that someone removed from the hierarchy of the Department of Justice should investigate individuals holding some of the country's highest executive branch offices."
Editorial Calls To Dump Cheney
Further fueling the "Dump Cheney" momentum, the Los Angeles Times published a lead editorial on Sunday, April 23, bluntly demanding that Cheney be fired. "If President Bush hopes the 'shake-up' of his administration initiated last week will re-energize his listless presidency, he's bound to be disappointed," the editorial began. "A far more audacious makeover is needed—one that sends Vice President Dick Cheney into early retirement."
After reviewing the collapse of the Bush Presidency, the Times editorial warned, "The remaking of the president in the public eye likely will require more than last week's game of musical chairs." After demanding the firing of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the editors concluded: "Suppose Bush didn't stop there. Suppose he also asked Cheney, his mentor and friend but an even more polarizing figure than Rumsfeld, to step down.... Having changed his tune, the president should also think about changing the company he keeps—big time, as Dick Cheney would say."
On April 24, the New York Times ran a puff piece on former Secretary of State and Bush family confidant James Baker III, whom the President has recently anointed to head a Congressionally-funded Iraq Study Group. The article compared Baker's potential role with that of Dean Acheson, another former Secretary of State, who played a pivotal role in convincing President Lyndon Johnson not to seek re-election in 1968. Republican Party sources have told EIR that Baker, an old, bitter political adversary of Cheney, would like nothing better than to deliver the bad news to the Veep: It's time to go.
The Los Angeles Times editorial appeared the same day that The Sunday Times, the semi-official voice of the City of London financier establishment, also called for Cheney's ouster, citing a wide range of Republican Party officials. Writing from Washington, Sunday Times correspondent Sarah Baxter reported that "Republicans are urging President George W. Bush to dump Dick Cheney as Vice President and replace him with Condoleezza Rice if he is serious about presenting a new face to the jaded American public. They believe that only the sacrifice of one or more of the big beasts of the jungle, such as Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, will convince voters that Bush understands the need for a fresh start."
Baxter even quoted Fred Barnes, of the neo-con Weekly Standard, calling for Cheney's departure. Barnes called for Bush to announce that "Dick Cheney will be around as an outside advisor and I can call him on the phone, but I'd like to anoint somebody who I think will be the next leader of the United States." As silly as the prospect of a Condi Rice appointment as Cheney's replacement is, the Times article ended on a deadly serious note, directed personally at George W. Bush: "Only one two-term victor has been more unpopular than Bush at a similar six-year stage in his presidency—Richard Nixon in the months before he was impeached."
Impeachment Calls and the Jefferson Rules
Bush's own impeachment is also on the political agenda, along with the calls for Cheney's ouster. As of this writing, three state legislatures are deliberating on impeachment resolutions against President Bush—California, Illinois, and Vermont. The California resolution, introduced by Assemblyman Paul Koretz, a Los Angeles area Democrat, names both Bush and Cheney, and mandates the California delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate to "cause to be instituted in the Congress proper proceedings for the investigation of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney, to the end that they may be impeached and removed from office."
All three of the impeachment initiatives cite Section 603 of Thomas Jefferson's Manual of the House of Representatives as the basis for a state legislature initiating an impeachment proceeding. Between 1797 and 1801, then-Vice President Thomas Jefferson prepared a Manual of Parliamentary Practice, to guide him in his capacity as President Pro Tem of the U.S. Senate. In 1837, the U.S. House of Representatives formally adopted the Jefferson rules to "govern the House in all cases to which they are applicable and in which they are not inconsistent with the standing rules and orders of the House and joint rules of the Senate and House of Representatives."
Section 603, "Inception of impeachment proceedings," specifically states that impeachment proceedings can be initiated "by charges transmitted from the legislature of a state or territory, or from a grand jury."
Do Republicans Want To Oust Dick Cheney?The Moderate Voice - Jun 26, 2007Like Cheney, Nixon did a lot for Republicans who had run for election and re-election and was a party stalwart over the years. MORE QUINN: For such a plan ...
A GOP Plan To Oust Cheney Washington Post
Bush/Cheney or the Republic Consortium News
all 13 news articles »
Cheney goes out on a limb to claim a separate branch of governmentAustin American-Statesman (subscription), TX - 12 hours agoEven stalwart Republicans have to be choking at Cheney's arrogance. Then there's the problem that Cheney has argued executive privilege for his office when ...
Impeachment - Now More Than Ever
It's been 7 months since Nancy Pelosi took impeachment "off the table". We've heard all the Republican talking points adopted by the corporatists wing of the Democratic Party (DLC): "we don't want to put the country through an impeachment proceeding", "Bush is almost out of office so what's the point?", "Impeach Bush, then we get stuck with Cheney".
These talking points put out by Republicans have somehow become the platform of the Democratic Party.There seems to be this pervasive mindset in the leadership of the Democratic Party that somehow impeachment is a dirty word. And no, we won't get "stuck" with Cheney, he needs to be impeached too. In fact to a certain degree, Kucinich may be right in going after Cheney first.
Our country cannot suffer another minute with the Bush Cheney rogue nation.
It's not too late to impeach Bush and Cheney.
It will never be too late.
Ten years after they leave office it STILL will not be too late.
They need to be made an example out of so that future Presidents do not try to assert absolute power.
If we do nothing, we are telling future Presidents that they are basically dictators who can do as they please.
Look at the amount of damage Bush and Cheney have done just over the last 7 months let alone the next year and a half.
Every minute we wait is a minute we move closer to a dictatorship.We now have a situation where both Bush and Cheney are asserting some make believe right over official documents that the public and our government have a right to.
They're classifying documents that were previously unclassified, unclassifying documents that can hurt their political enemies, shredding documents that implement them in vote caging, the U.S. Attorney scandal, the torture at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, and fabircated prewar intelligence.
Bush and Cheney are sitting on a mountain of paper that all points back to them.
From Cheney's "energy task force" that devised the invasion of Iraq to Bush's nonchalent attitude over the Presidential Daily Briefings prior to 9/11 titled Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S. August 6, 2001, they can't classify and shred documents fast enough.
Fortunately for them, Congress is moving very slowly at getting anything done. It's already clear that Republicans will gleefully violate the Presidential Records Act deleting emails relating to vote caging and the firing of U.S. Attorneys.
What Congress has done now is provide Bush and Cheney the time and cover necessary that they need to clean up their mess before it ever sees the light of day.
So Bush and Cheney are now saying they have the right to classify and declassify any documents that are in their domain and that their domain is outside of the Executive Branch.
For all we know the shredders are working over time at Cheney and Bush's offices.
And what's Congress going to do about? "Demand" that Bush and Cheney cease and decist from any tampering with official White House records?
And does Congress really think Bush and Cheney will listen?
We are at a crisis point with what's left of our government.
Congress has become nearly irrelevant.
Bush writes his own laws and chooses which laws he will obey and which laws he will break.
Now is the time to be bold and shrill. Our Democratic Leaders should be going on the TV, the radio, and the internets explaining to the American People exactly what's going on and making their case for impeachment.
Instead all we get is silence.
Imagine for a minute if Bush and Cheney were Democrats and publically announced that they do not have to follow laws pertaining to the executive branch, what do you think would happen?
I'll tell you what would happen. We'd be barraged day in and day out by the likes of Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Malkin, Coulter, Savage Wiener, and every other right wing tool demanding their impeachment.
The news would gleefully cover the demise of Bush and Cheney IF only they were Democrats.
But because they are Republicans, they get a magic pass.America, you are on the verge of losing your country.
You are on the verge of becoming a dictatorship.
The Constitution has been relegated to a quaint historical document to be admired in a museum but not obeyed.
The contempt Bush and Cheney have for our government, for our way of life, is on display for all to see.
And yet we sit here and do nothing. Congress does nothing.All the while the dream that was known as America slips away and turns to dust.
June 27, 2007 at 10:29:00
Cheney and Cheneyism
by James Brett Page 1 of 1 page(s)
http://www.opednews.com-/
Dick Cheney is one thing and Cheneyism is another. Dick "Backseat" Cheney is a political cockroach. Open the door and in he scuttles, finding immediately the dark places in any space and feeding surreptitiously from the general mess. He acquires power by taking jobs that no one else really wants, and in this way resembles Iosip Vissarionovich Djugashvili (Uncle Joe Stalin) more than any other character preceding him. The Vice Presidency is such a job, a laughing stock, a glass of warm "spit," an obscure office where a Cheney could thrive. He has. He has been the power behind much in the CheneyBush administration, a fact we have identifed months and months ago.
Cheney has a low center of gravity, a knack for being unperturbed by the by-play of Washington politics, but make no mistake, he is keeping score, relentlessly.
Dick Cheney is a profane man who fancies himself cut from a mold that once cut Teddy Roosevelt. He is a "sportsman" and respecter of manly arts. When an "effete Vermonter" pissed him off, his "Go Fuck Yourself, Senator" came straight from the hip and was barely noticed by his prefrontal cortex or any other part of his brain that might be involved (in other people) with ethics and courtesy. Cheney believes that courtesy is a weakness, but that brash assertiveness is the mark of a survivor, a winner. Accordingly, Cheney does not think much of other human beings.
Cheney is a social darwinist, a person who believes that human life is meant to be a struggle for survival. For him survival is gaining control over his environment, and being one who acquired power by association with smarter people or richer people or just by accident, he sees himself as a survivor and the rest are, well, stooges. This aspect of Cheney's personality dominates his conscious and unconscious life.
Cheney has a bit of an inferiority complex because he does not have a very strong pedigree or resume. He coattailed Rumsfeld into Washington politics and made use of his singular opportunity like some sort of dark Horatio Alger, learning the back channels, the dirt, the seamy side and the levers of power. He has been astute and despite his modest intellect, he is above average in achievement, and it would be a very big mistake to underestimate his ability to reach a conclusion quickly. It would be appropriate to notice, nevertheless, that he (like many who are not well-endowed with synaptic agility) tends to hold onto his judgments despite accumulating evidence. This is part of his "manliness" construct, of course. Cheney is no wimp, at least not his own mirror.
Dick Cheney's grounding in the masculine mythos and in the survival of the fittest ethos of the 19th century American wild west, (as portrayed to the world on Wyoming license plates), and the strange moodiness that overcomes natives of the area during the Chinook winds off the slopes of the Rocky Mountains (rendering Casper as the per capita suicide capital of America) led him inexorably to the neocon ideology expressed by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC).
You will recall that when the Constitution was written and ratified the United States was not a world power and was engaged in consolidating itself as an isolated continental power in North America, with unfriendly Spaniards to the south and semi-hostile, semi-friendly British to the north in Canada. The ideas in the PNAC credo do not quite fit our Constitution and, therefore, Cheney does not quite believe the Constitution fits anymore. I would not want to overemphasize the causal connection here. Cheney's animus was never quite ready for the give and take and balance that our Constitution requires. For Dick Cheney the Constitution is an old piece of paper, useful for giving a minimum structure in which to operate, but almost entirely without moral or principled implications. He just does not respect it, period.
Cheney is fundamentally and viscerally intolerant. To satisfy his own intellect, he does not have to concede anyone's hypotheses about life, government, politics. He reaches his own opinion and that is that. It is not pragmatism,; it is totalitarian, in fact. Cheney is not democratic and frankly disdains the idea that democracy is a better form of government than oligarchy or even kleptocratic corporatist fascism, which is his own faith and the proof that Cheney does not exist in a vacuum.
There are Cheneyists and Cheneyites all over the place. Cheney, like Stalin before him, has salted the federal government with people who are beholding to him and him alone for their position and sway. They were picked because they agree with Dick Cheney's analysis of history and government, namely, that there is too much opportunity there to be left to the hoi polloi, to democratic inefficiencies, to the vagaries of public opinion.
Cheneyism is a generalized phenomenon into which Dick Cheney fits in some ways only by accident. He seems to epitomize the callous disregard for rule of law, for might-makes-right foreign affairs, for secrecy and subterfuge, for torture, for anti-democratic spin and for spoils-system kleptomania, but actually Cheney is just the most visible and perhaps the most immediately dangerous practitioner of Cheneyism.
Cheneyism is a name we give to the dark, kleptofascist corporatists that swim among us. Their group is as old as the republic and never gives up trying to acquire power and riches so to acquire insulation from the vagaries of life. In Cheney's case no amount of insulation will protect him from his own dark damaged heart. Cheneyism is a false ideology, of course. The fittest are those who cooperate, not those who kill and torture and disdain the lives and minds of people they cannot use.
Cheneyism is, to paraphrase Rahm Emanuel on Countdown Tuesday evening, the credo of George Bush, for without that partnership Cheney would not be where he is today-the options behind "the Decider." Long time readers will recall that you saw here first the notion that Bush's declaration of being The Decider was partly in reaction to seeping knowledge that Cheney was the power behind the throne. But Cheneyism goes much, much farther than Bush.
There are Cheneyistas in Congress, men and women who believe that their affiliation to the Republican party trumps their oath of office, particularly the idea that their number one job is to preserve and defend the Constitution of the United States. The hardline party loyalists believe as Cheney does the moment he awakes hanging upside down in his cave on Naval Observatory hill that a republic need not be a democracy, but rather would be more effective and efficient as a corporatist republic, representing the needs of the masses through their employers, and-never forget-enriching those chosen to "public service" in the corporate ladder-climbing processes.
Cheney may fall. He may die of heart failure. He may get impeached. The problem is that like all good cockroaches, he has multiplied and his kind are in the cracks and boldly strutting down the boulevards of Washington. Meanwhile the press believes they have identified an anomolous creature. They are wrong. Cheney is just the darkest of his kind.
JB
http://americanliberalism.org/
James R. Brett, Ph.D. taught Russian History in several universities before becoming an academic administrator. His academic interests have been in the history of science and the history of ideas, particularly Marxism and classical liberalism, but also psychology and consciousness studies. He became an acknowledged expert on curriculum and faculty research administration. He is a frequent contributor to liberal and progressive blogs and is the founder and publisher of The American Liberalism Project.
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June 22, 2007 at 23:01:17
The American People Know What Time it Is!
by Timothy V. Gatto Page 1 of 1 page(s)
http://www.opednews.com/
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This has been some roller coaster ride. Not that we don’t appreciate it George, but your antics, and those of your friends and associates are really getting out of hand. Look, I know that I am not a part of your “base”, heh, heh, but I am an American, and that kind of makes me your boss, heh heh, so as one of your many bosses, I’m writing this to tell you that the American People know what time it is.
Maybe you don’t realize it yourself, so I’m here to make sure you get the message, it’s time for you to quit thinking that you are the Decider and the Commander-in Chief, and all of the other things that you believe you are, because in reality, most people in this country believe that you and Cheney and Gonzales should be in jail rather than in the executive branch.
Tonight I listened to “Propaganda Tonight with Katie Couric”. She told us that we are about to be hit with another terrorist attack. Just how do you know that? I thought you said we are fighting them over there so that we don’t have to fight them over here. So she’s just kidding, right? You’re not going to tell me that now we have to fight them over there and over here at the same time? Is that what you are trying to tell us?
So let me get this straight, with all the new laws and directives, if they launch a terrorist attack on us here, and do the kind of damage that you alleged that they did last time, is this when you put on your military field jacket and proclaim yourself dictator for the good of the country? I’m not kidding here because you and all your friends are starting to freak me out.
All this talk of terrorism and has gotten the people in this country really scared (not). I don’t want to sound glib, but this sounds like the other ten-thousand terror alerts that we have sat through before this one. So what makes this one any different?
Tonight I watched a re-run of “Law and Order, Criminal Intent” and Chris Noth was on the show. The character played by Vincent D’Onofrio asks him if he ever heard of The Patriot Act, Noth looks up and tells him “I read the original version, it was called 1984”, So how ‘bout them apples, George? Can you see what your country thinks of the crap your administration has shoved down the American People’s throat?
Let me tell you something Mr. “All Powerful Chief Executive of the Most Powerful Nation that the Planet Earth has ever Seen in History”, you have succeeded in getting most of your fellow citizens very angry, and that is saying a lot.
Most people in this country could care less about politics, but in this case, even your average Joe Six-Pack is getting a little pissed off at seeing friends come back in body bags while you keep threatening people and rewarding your rich friends when they take their businesses overseas and while the oil companies gouge out the last dollar on the day before payday so that Joe Blow can buy a half gallon of gas to get to work.
Don’t think that we’re too stupid to notice that the price of gas rose 33% before MemorialDay and the Big Oil Companies blamed it on “refinery breakdowns” and these same refineries were miraculously fixed just after the holiday. How much do you want to bet that the price of gas rises on the 1st of July, and then again the week before Labor Day? What business were you in before you got into politics? Oh, that’s right, oil.
But that’s not what’s got Americans pissed off, it’s the death and the destruction, that and watching our rights that we used to stand for gutted. We as Americans no longer have the moral authority to ask any nation on the face of the Earth to stop doing anything.
Not while we imprison people and torture then without them even knowing what they are charged with! Sure, some of those people are terrorists, just like some of the criminals on the streets of America might be the scum of the Earth. That doesn’t give us the right to be as cruel and unmerciful to them, as they are to their enemies.
We are supposed to be better than they are. That’s why we are supposed to be the “good guys”. What I can’t understand is why you and your fellow murderers can’t see that? You are probably the most hated man on the planet! You may think its Osama Bin Laden, but it’s not, it is you! You have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Do you think that you can do this without paying some kind of price?
You claim to be a religious man? I really can’t believe that. I believe that you are killing people so that the Oil Companies can get this Oil Law passed in Iraq. That’s a terrible thing to say, but that’s what I believe.
I also believe that you want to attack Iran.
I also believe that if you are given the chance, you will not step down in January, 2009.
I believe that if there is a natural or man-made disaster in this country, you will do whatever it talks to prolong your time in The White House.
Just because I believe this, doesn’t make it so, I realize that. What I do know however, if not for you and your gang of thugs that took control in a virtual coup in 2000, more than half a million people would be alive today, raising their children and singing songs, writing poetry, making love top their wives and husbands and adding their gift of life to this world.
You took that away from them. You and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice and all the others that can only see things their own way, have taken their most precious possession away from them.
George, the American People are slow to react, but once provoked they are also hard to control, and they never forget. If Nixon were alive, he’d tell you that. Think about what happened to him, and he didn’t do half of what you’ve done! The American People Know What Time It Is.
http://liberalpro.blogspot.com
Former Chairman of the Liberal Party of America, Tim is a retired Army Sergeant. He currently lives in South Carolina. A regular contributor to OpEdNews, he is the author of Kimchee Kronicles and is currently at work on a new novel.
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THERE IS NOTHING POLITICALLY CORRECT ABOUT THIS POST FROM BEGINNING TO END; SO ENJOY!
George W. Bush's presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace.
Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents.
And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.
Former Nixon White House counsel John W. Dean writes on Findlaw.com:
If anyone doubts that Bush, Cheney, Rove and their confidants are planning an 'October Surprise' to prevent the Republicans from losing control of Congress, then he or she has not been observing this presidency very closely. . . .
One possibility is that Dick Cheney will resign as Vice President for 'health reasons,' and become a senior counselor to the president.
And Bush will name a new vice president - a choice geared to increase his popularity, as well as someone electable in 2008. It would give his sinking administration a new face, and new life.
SHOULD CHENEY BE NEXT?
Even as skittish White House aides brace for another wave of staffing shuffles this week, the bar is being dramatically raised on what sort of personnel move would be needed to actually turn things around for the Bush presidency.
A major newspaper and one of the most pro-Bush voices in punditry are now suggesting that nothing short of removing Vice President Cheney really stands a chance.
The Los Angeles Times editorial board writes: "If President Bush hopes the 'shake-up' of his administration initiated last week will re-energize his listless presidency, he's bound to be disappointed. A far more audacious makeover is needed -- one that sends Vice President Dick Cheney into early retirement."
June 26, 2007 at 07:56:45
If Dems Won't Oust Cheney, GOP Has Plan
by Rob Kall Page 1 of 1 page(s)
http://www.opednews.com-/
Sally Quinn has written an Op-ed in the washington post, A GOP Plan To Oust Cheney which suggests Cheney’s time as VP may be short. It’s gratifying to note that the scenario she describe is almost identical to the one I’ve been predicting for almost a year.
The big question right now among Republicans is how to remove Vice President Cheney from office. Even before this week's blockbuster series in The Post, discontent in Republican ranks was rising.
As the reputed architect of the war in Iraq, Cheney is viewed as toxic, and as the administration's leading proponent of an attack on Iran, he is seen as dangerous. As long as he remains vice president, according to this thinking, he has the potential to drag down every member of the party -- including the presidential nominee -- in next year's elections.
Removing a sitting vice president is not easy, but this may be the moment. I remember Barry Goldwater sitting in my parents' living room in 1973, in the last days of Watergate, debating whether to lead a group of senior Republicans to the White House to tell President Nixon he had to go. His hesitation was that he felt loyalty to the president and the party. But in the end he felt a greater loyalty to his country, and he went to the White House.
Today, another group of party elders, led by Sen. John Warner of Virginia, could well do the same. They could act out of concern for our country's plummeting reputation throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East.
For such a plan to work, however, they would need a ready replacement. Until recently, there hasn't been an acceptable alternative to Cheney -- nor has there been a persuasive argument to convince President Bush to make a change. Now there is.
Quinn suggests that Bush and the Republicans have not had a good replacement for Cheney—Giuliani’s too New York social liberal, Romney’s a Mormon and McCain’s campaign put Bush off too much with the conflict/competition. But she says Fred Thompson could be the knight in shining armor who could remove one of the most toxic elements of the Republicans’ horrible public image.
She writes that installing him as vice president could help set him up as a stronger candidate for the 2008 presidency, and could act to put a damper on Bush’s “button” moments. Quinn concludes;
Cheney is scheduled this summer for surgery to replace his pacemaker, which needs new batteries. So if the president is willing, and Republicans are able, they have a convenient reason to replace him: doctor's orders. And I'm sure the the vice president would also like to spend more time with his ever-expanding family.
I don’t think the dems will allow Bush to appoint a potential presidential candidate as vice president. Why would they allow the Republicans to have a leg up in the presidential race.
A more likely scenario is for Bush to appoint a senior—very senior—leader of the conservative hierarchy as vice president—even his own father or perennial Republican rescue ranger James Baker. Matter of fact, James Baker might be perfect, except that he might find himself in a position where he would decide to take a run for the presidency.
It will be tough to find a Republican who is both respected, who can actually HELP Bush and the nation, and for whom a run for the presidency is definitely off the table. But that could be the biggest impediment to helping Bush reach the point where he encourages Cheney to accept that note from the doctor saying he needs to retire.
It’s likely that before this scenario unfolds, Harry Reid will vet the replacement Bush has in mind. It’s unlikely Bush will proceed without some confidence that he can replace Cheney without a big fight in congress. He’s already been embarassed enough by his growing lame duck status.
Still, as more and more ugly, embarassing, Republican-party-damaging dirt comes out on Cheney, THE WALKs to Bush’s office, like the one Goldwater led to Nixon, will be happening with greater and greater frequency.
There will be building pressure to dump Cheney, not only from the Republicans. I’d be surprised if the current count of eight members of congress who have signed on to Kucinich Cheney impeachment bill doesn’t climb to ten in the next week or two. With the Dem failure to stop the war, one way to placate unhappy Democratic voters is to throw them the Cheney bone.
Throw US the Cheney Bone; throw it, and then we can focus on the other slab of beer fed raw meat in the White House. I’m hungry!
Cheney's Ouster Is Key to U.S. Survival
A number of senior U.S. policymakers responded instantaneously to Lyndon LaRouche's April 20 document, "World System on Weimar Collapse Curve," with shocked recognition that their own timetable for a major, top-down political shakeup of the Bush White House, was way off the mark. LaRouche's highlighting of the Weimar-style hyperinflationary spike in primary commodity prices over the past 16 months (see EIR, April 28, 2006), and his forecast that the present global financial system cannot survive the third quarter of 2006 without a major change in policy, suddenly pushed the issue of Vice President Dick Cheney to the top of the strategic agenda.
LaRouche zeroed in on Cheney at the start of his April 27 international webcast, published in full in this issue. After walking the audience through the documentation of the strategic commodities price explosion, LaRouche declared: "This means that the present system is finished! And it's finished this year, unless dramatic interventions to radically change the situation are made by the U.S. government. Which means you've got to get the nerd out of the White House. And Cheney first."
LaRouche continued: "Cheney, I understand, could be in deep trouble, this week, or next week. It's already in process. There's no chance this nation would survive, number one, unless we change the composition of the Presidency. Because this President will never do what's required. He hasn't got the brains to do it, and he'd be 'agin it'—sort of like the Mortimer Snerd of the White House.
"And if Cheney's not out, it's not possible to make the kind of changes that are required, which are changes that are consistent with what Franklin Roosevelt began to do in early March of 1933, at the time of his inauguration. Unless we go back to Franklin Roosevelt, and do it this year, this nation is not going to make it. We're going to Hell—and we're going to take the rest of the world with us."
Fortunately, there are some signs that there is renewed momentum to dump the Vice President. For the first time, senior Washington sources report that a faction inside the Bush White House itself is pressing for Cheney's ouster. There is some speculation that Karl Rove, President Bush's senior political strategist, has now joined the "Dump Cheney" bandwagon. If that proves true, the consequences for the Veep could be politically deadly.
The Fitzgerald Grand Jury
On April 26, Rove made his fifth appearance before Independent Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's Alexandria, Va. grand jury investigation of the "outing" of CIA official Valerie Plame. According to news accounts and government sources, Rove's attorney recently received a "target" letter from Fitzgerald, indicating that the senior Presidential aide is likely to be indicted—for perjury and/or obstruction of justice. Government sources have told EIR that Rove's testimony could be vital, in shaping whether the Independent Counsel probe remains focussed on the Vice President and his top aides, or whether it broadens to include top Oval Office and National Security Council personnel. These sources indicate that the pace of the Fitzgerald probe was greatly accelerated, as the result of recent court filings by attorneys for indicted former Cheney chief-of-staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Libby's lawyers indicated that they intend to call Rove as a defense witness when the case goes to trial early next year.
Other well-placed Washington sources indicate that there has been a significant rift between Rove and Cheney, since early in the 2004 re-election campaign, when Rove floated the idea of dumping Cheney from the ticket, due to the Vice President's growing unpopularity. These sources suggest that Rove has already provided the Independent Counsel with damning evidence about Cheney's personal role in leaking the identity of Plame, who in addition to being a CIA officer, is the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV.
The Rove-Cheney-Fitzgerald drama took on even greater significance on April 27, when Federal Judge Reggie Walton issued a 31-page opinion, denying Libby's motion to dismiss the indictment. Libby's lawyers had argued that the appointment of Fitzgerald as Independent Counsel had been unconstitutional. Judge Walton's ruling shot down all of Libby's arguments, in stark language: "The integrity of the rule of law," Judge Walton wrote, "which is a core ingredient of the American system of government, is challenged to the greatest degree when high-level government officials come under suspicion for violating the law.... For obvious reasons, the Attorney General recused himself and the Deputy Attorney General concluded that someone removed from the hierarchy of the Department of Justice should investigate individuals holding some of the country's highest executive branch offices."
Editorial Calls To Dump Cheney
Further fueling the "Dump Cheney" momentum, the Los Angeles Times published a lead editorial on Sunday, April 23, bluntly demanding that Cheney be fired. "If President Bush hopes the 'shake-up' of his administration initiated last week will re-energize his listless presidency, he's bound to be disappointed," the editorial began. "A far more audacious makeover is needed—one that sends Vice President Dick Cheney into early retirement."
After reviewing the collapse of the Bush Presidency, the Times editorial warned, "The remaking of the president in the public eye likely will require more than last week's game of musical chairs." After demanding the firing of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the editors concluded: "Suppose Bush didn't stop there. Suppose he also asked Cheney, his mentor and friend but an even more polarizing figure than Rumsfeld, to step down.... Having changed his tune, the president should also think about changing the company he keeps—big time, as Dick Cheney would say."
On April 24, the New York Times ran a puff piece on former Secretary of State and Bush family confidant James Baker III, whom the President has recently anointed to head a Congressionally-funded Iraq Study Group. The article compared Baker's potential role with that of Dean Acheson, another former Secretary of State, who played a pivotal role in convincing President Lyndon Johnson not to seek re-election in 1968. Republican Party sources have told EIR that Baker, an old, bitter political adversary of Cheney, would like nothing better than to deliver the bad news to the Veep: It's time to go.
The Los Angeles Times editorial appeared the same day that The Sunday Times, the semi-official voice of the City of London financier establishment, also called for Cheney's ouster, citing a wide range of Republican Party officials. Writing from Washington, Sunday Times correspondent Sarah Baxter reported that "Republicans are urging President George W. Bush to dump Dick Cheney as Vice President and replace him with Condoleezza Rice if he is serious about presenting a new face to the jaded American public. They believe that only the sacrifice of one or more of the big beasts of the jungle, such as Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, will convince voters that Bush understands the need for a fresh start."
Baxter even quoted Fred Barnes, of the neo-con Weekly Standard, calling for Cheney's departure. Barnes called for Bush to announce that "Dick Cheney will be around as an outside advisor and I can call him on the phone, but I'd like to anoint somebody who I think will be the next leader of the United States." As silly as the prospect of a Condi Rice appointment as Cheney's replacement is, the Times article ended on a deadly serious note, directed personally at George W. Bush: "Only one two-term victor has been more unpopular than Bush at a similar six-year stage in his presidency—Richard Nixon in the months before he was impeached."
Impeachment Calls and the Jefferson Rules
Bush's own impeachment is also on the political agenda, along with the calls for Cheney's ouster. As of this writing, three state legislatures are deliberating on impeachment resolutions against President Bush—California, Illinois, and Vermont. The California resolution, introduced by Assemblyman Paul Koretz, a Los Angeles area Democrat, names both Bush and Cheney, and mandates the California delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate to "cause to be instituted in the Congress proper proceedings for the investigation of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney, to the end that they may be impeached and removed from office."
All three of the impeachment initiatives cite Section 603 of Thomas Jefferson's Manual of the House of Representatives as the basis for a state legislature initiating an impeachment proceeding. Between 1797 and 1801, then-Vice President Thomas Jefferson prepared a Manual of Parliamentary Practice, to guide him in his capacity as President Pro Tem of the U.S. Senate. In 1837, the U.S. House of Representatives formally adopted the Jefferson rules to "govern the House in all cases to which they are applicable and in which they are not inconsistent with the standing rules and orders of the House and joint rules of the Senate and House of Representatives."
Section 603, "Inception of impeachment proceedings," specifically states that impeachment proceedings can be initiated "by charges transmitted from the legislature of a state or territory, or from a grand jury."
Do Republicans Want To Oust Dick Cheney?The Moderate Voice - Jun 26, 2007Like Cheney, Nixon did a lot for Republicans who had run for election and re-election and was a party stalwart over the years. MORE QUINN: For such a plan ...
A GOP Plan To Oust Cheney Washington Post
Bush/Cheney or the Republic Consortium News
all 13 news articles »
Cheney goes out on a limb to claim a separate branch of governmentAustin American-Statesman (subscription), TX - 12 hours agoEven stalwart Republicans have to be choking at Cheney's arrogance. Then there's the problem that Cheney has argued executive privilege for his office when ...
Impeachment - Now More Than Ever
It's been 7 months since Nancy Pelosi took impeachment "off the table". We've heard all the Republican talking points adopted by the corporatists wing of the Democratic Party (DLC): "we don't want to put the country through an impeachment proceeding", "Bush is almost out of office so what's the point?", "Impeach Bush, then we get stuck with Cheney".
These talking points put out by Republicans have somehow become the platform of the Democratic Party.There seems to be this pervasive mindset in the leadership of the Democratic Party that somehow impeachment is a dirty word. And no, we won't get "stuck" with Cheney, he needs to be impeached too. In fact to a certain degree, Kucinich may be right in going after Cheney first.
Our country cannot suffer another minute with the Bush Cheney rogue nation.
It's not too late to impeach Bush and Cheney.
It will never be too late.
Ten years after they leave office it STILL will not be too late.
They need to be made an example out of so that future Presidents do not try to assert absolute power.
If we do nothing, we are telling future Presidents that they are basically dictators who can do as they please.
Look at the amount of damage Bush and Cheney have done just over the last 7 months let alone the next year and a half.
Every minute we wait is a minute we move closer to a dictatorship.We now have a situation where both Bush and Cheney are asserting some make believe right over official documents that the public and our government have a right to.
They're classifying documents that were previously unclassified, unclassifying documents that can hurt their political enemies, shredding documents that implement them in vote caging, the U.S. Attorney scandal, the torture at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, and fabircated prewar intelligence.
Bush and Cheney are sitting on a mountain of paper that all points back to them.
From Cheney's "energy task force" that devised the invasion of Iraq to Bush's nonchalent attitude over the Presidential Daily Briefings prior to 9/11 titled Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S. August 6, 2001, they can't classify and shred documents fast enough.
Fortunately for them, Congress is moving very slowly at getting anything done. It's already clear that Republicans will gleefully violate the Presidential Records Act deleting emails relating to vote caging and the firing of U.S. Attorneys.
What Congress has done now is provide Bush and Cheney the time and cover necessary that they need to clean up their mess before it ever sees the light of day.
So Bush and Cheney are now saying they have the right to classify and declassify any documents that are in their domain and that their domain is outside of the Executive Branch.
For all we know the shredders are working over time at Cheney and Bush's offices.
And what's Congress going to do about? "Demand" that Bush and Cheney cease and decist from any tampering with official White House records?
And does Congress really think Bush and Cheney will listen?
We are at a crisis point with what's left of our government.
Congress has become nearly irrelevant.
Bush writes his own laws and chooses which laws he will obey and which laws he will break.
Now is the time to be bold and shrill. Our Democratic Leaders should be going on the TV, the radio, and the internets explaining to the American People exactly what's going on and making their case for impeachment.
Instead all we get is silence.
Imagine for a minute if Bush and Cheney were Democrats and publically announced that they do not have to follow laws pertaining to the executive branch, what do you think would happen?
I'll tell you what would happen. We'd be barraged day in and day out by the likes of Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Malkin, Coulter, Savage Wiener, and every other right wing tool demanding their impeachment.
The news would gleefully cover the demise of Bush and Cheney IF only they were Democrats.
But because they are Republicans, they get a magic pass.America, you are on the verge of losing your country.
You are on the verge of becoming a dictatorship.
The Constitution has been relegated to a quaint historical document to be admired in a museum but not obeyed.
The contempt Bush and Cheney have for our government, for our way of life, is on display for all to see.
And yet we sit here and do nothing. Congress does nothing.All the while the dream that was known as America slips away and turns to dust.
June 27, 2007 at 10:29:00
Cheney and Cheneyism
by James Brett Page 1 of 1 page(s)
http://www.opednews.com-/
Dick Cheney is one thing and Cheneyism is another. Dick "Backseat" Cheney is a political cockroach. Open the door and in he scuttles, finding immediately the dark places in any space and feeding surreptitiously from the general mess. He acquires power by taking jobs that no one else really wants, and in this way resembles Iosip Vissarionovich Djugashvili (Uncle Joe Stalin) more than any other character preceding him. The Vice Presidency is such a job, a laughing stock, a glass of warm "spit," an obscure office where a Cheney could thrive. He has. He has been the power behind much in the CheneyBush administration, a fact we have identifed months and months ago.
Cheney has a low center of gravity, a knack for being unperturbed by the by-play of Washington politics, but make no mistake, he is keeping score, relentlessly.
Dick Cheney is a profane man who fancies himself cut from a mold that once cut Teddy Roosevelt. He is a "sportsman" and respecter of manly arts. When an "effete Vermonter" pissed him off, his "Go Fuck Yourself, Senator" came straight from the hip and was barely noticed by his prefrontal cortex or any other part of his brain that might be involved (in other people) with ethics and courtesy. Cheney believes that courtesy is a weakness, but that brash assertiveness is the mark of a survivor, a winner. Accordingly, Cheney does not think much of other human beings.
Cheney is a social darwinist, a person who believes that human life is meant to be a struggle for survival. For him survival is gaining control over his environment, and being one who acquired power by association with smarter people or richer people or just by accident, he sees himself as a survivor and the rest are, well, stooges. This aspect of Cheney's personality dominates his conscious and unconscious life.
Cheney has a bit of an inferiority complex because he does not have a very strong pedigree or resume. He coattailed Rumsfeld into Washington politics and made use of his singular opportunity like some sort of dark Horatio Alger, learning the back channels, the dirt, the seamy side and the levers of power. He has been astute and despite his modest intellect, he is above average in achievement, and it would be a very big mistake to underestimate his ability to reach a conclusion quickly. It would be appropriate to notice, nevertheless, that he (like many who are not well-endowed with synaptic agility) tends to hold onto his judgments despite accumulating evidence. This is part of his "manliness" construct, of course. Cheney is no wimp, at least not his own mirror.
Dick Cheney's grounding in the masculine mythos and in the survival of the fittest ethos of the 19th century American wild west, (as portrayed to the world on Wyoming license plates), and the strange moodiness that overcomes natives of the area during the Chinook winds off the slopes of the Rocky Mountains (rendering Casper as the per capita suicide capital of America) led him inexorably to the neocon ideology expressed by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC).
You will recall that when the Constitution was written and ratified the United States was not a world power and was engaged in consolidating itself as an isolated continental power in North America, with unfriendly Spaniards to the south and semi-hostile, semi-friendly British to the north in Canada. The ideas in the PNAC credo do not quite fit our Constitution and, therefore, Cheney does not quite believe the Constitution fits anymore. I would not want to overemphasize the causal connection here. Cheney's animus was never quite ready for the give and take and balance that our Constitution requires. For Dick Cheney the Constitution is an old piece of paper, useful for giving a minimum structure in which to operate, but almost entirely without moral or principled implications. He just does not respect it, period.
Cheney is fundamentally and viscerally intolerant. To satisfy his own intellect, he does not have to concede anyone's hypotheses about life, government, politics. He reaches his own opinion and that is that. It is not pragmatism,; it is totalitarian, in fact. Cheney is not democratic and frankly disdains the idea that democracy is a better form of government than oligarchy or even kleptocratic corporatist fascism, which is his own faith and the proof that Cheney does not exist in a vacuum.
There are Cheneyists and Cheneyites all over the place. Cheney, like Stalin before him, has salted the federal government with people who are beholding to him and him alone for their position and sway. They were picked because they agree with Dick Cheney's analysis of history and government, namely, that there is too much opportunity there to be left to the hoi polloi, to democratic inefficiencies, to the vagaries of public opinion.
Cheneyism is a generalized phenomenon into which Dick Cheney fits in some ways only by accident. He seems to epitomize the callous disregard for rule of law, for might-makes-right foreign affairs, for secrecy and subterfuge, for torture, for anti-democratic spin and for spoils-system kleptomania, but actually Cheney is just the most visible and perhaps the most immediately dangerous practitioner of Cheneyism.
Cheneyism is a name we give to the dark, kleptofascist corporatists that swim among us. Their group is as old as the republic and never gives up trying to acquire power and riches so to acquire insulation from the vagaries of life. In Cheney's case no amount of insulation will protect him from his own dark damaged heart. Cheneyism is a false ideology, of course. The fittest are those who cooperate, not those who kill and torture and disdain the lives and minds of people they cannot use.
Cheneyism is, to paraphrase Rahm Emanuel on Countdown Tuesday evening, the credo of George Bush, for without that partnership Cheney would not be where he is today-the options behind "the Decider." Long time readers will recall that you saw here first the notion that Bush's declaration of being The Decider was partly in reaction to seeping knowledge that Cheney was the power behind the throne. But Cheneyism goes much, much farther than Bush.
There are Cheneyistas in Congress, men and women who believe that their affiliation to the Republican party trumps their oath of office, particularly the idea that their number one job is to preserve and defend the Constitution of the United States. The hardline party loyalists believe as Cheney does the moment he awakes hanging upside down in his cave on Naval Observatory hill that a republic need not be a democracy, but rather would be more effective and efficient as a corporatist republic, representing the needs of the masses through their employers, and-never forget-enriching those chosen to "public service" in the corporate ladder-climbing processes.
Cheney may fall. He may die of heart failure. He may get impeached. The problem is that like all good cockroaches, he has multiplied and his kind are in the cracks and boldly strutting down the boulevards of Washington. Meanwhile the press believes they have identified an anomolous creature. They are wrong. Cheney is just the darkest of his kind.
JB
http://americanliberalism.org/
James R. Brett, Ph.D. taught Russian History in several universities before becoming an academic administrator. His academic interests have been in the history of science and the history of ideas, particularly Marxism and classical liberalism, but also psychology and consciousness studies. He became an acknowledged expert on curriculum and faculty research administration. He is a frequent contributor to liberal and progressive blogs and is the founder and publisher of The American Liberalism Project.
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June 22, 2007 at 23:01:17
The American People Know What Time it Is!
by Timothy V. Gatto Page 1 of 1 page(s)
http://www.opednews.com/
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This has been some roller coaster ride. Not that we don’t appreciate it George, but your antics, and those of your friends and associates are really getting out of hand. Look, I know that I am not a part of your “base”, heh, heh, but I am an American, and that kind of makes me your boss, heh heh, so as one of your many bosses, I’m writing this to tell you that the American People know what time it is.
Maybe you don’t realize it yourself, so I’m here to make sure you get the message, it’s time for you to quit thinking that you are the Decider and the Commander-in Chief, and all of the other things that you believe you are, because in reality, most people in this country believe that you and Cheney and Gonzales should be in jail rather than in the executive branch.
Tonight I listened to “Propaganda Tonight with Katie Couric”. She told us that we are about to be hit with another terrorist attack. Just how do you know that? I thought you said we are fighting them over there so that we don’t have to fight them over here. So she’s just kidding, right? You’re not going to tell me that now we have to fight them over there and over here at the same time? Is that what you are trying to tell us?
So let me get this straight, with all the new laws and directives, if they launch a terrorist attack on us here, and do the kind of damage that you alleged that they did last time, is this when you put on your military field jacket and proclaim yourself dictator for the good of the country? I’m not kidding here because you and all your friends are starting to freak me out.
All this talk of terrorism and has gotten the people in this country really scared (not). I don’t want to sound glib, but this sounds like the other ten-thousand terror alerts that we have sat through before this one. So what makes this one any different?
Tonight I watched a re-run of “Law and Order, Criminal Intent” and Chris Noth was on the show. The character played by Vincent D’Onofrio asks him if he ever heard of The Patriot Act, Noth looks up and tells him “I read the original version, it was called 1984”, So how ‘bout them apples, George? Can you see what your country thinks of the crap your administration has shoved down the American People’s throat?
Let me tell you something Mr. “All Powerful Chief Executive of the Most Powerful Nation that the Planet Earth has ever Seen in History”, you have succeeded in getting most of your fellow citizens very angry, and that is saying a lot.
Most people in this country could care less about politics, but in this case, even your average Joe Six-Pack is getting a little pissed off at seeing friends come back in body bags while you keep threatening people and rewarding your rich friends when they take their businesses overseas and while the oil companies gouge out the last dollar on the day before payday so that Joe Blow can buy a half gallon of gas to get to work.
Don’t think that we’re too stupid to notice that the price of gas rose 33% before MemorialDay and the Big Oil Companies blamed it on “refinery breakdowns” and these same refineries were miraculously fixed just after the holiday. How much do you want to bet that the price of gas rises on the 1st of July, and then again the week before Labor Day? What business were you in before you got into politics? Oh, that’s right, oil.
But that’s not what’s got Americans pissed off, it’s the death and the destruction, that and watching our rights that we used to stand for gutted. We as Americans no longer have the moral authority to ask any nation on the face of the Earth to stop doing anything.
Not while we imprison people and torture then without them even knowing what they are charged with! Sure, some of those people are terrorists, just like some of the criminals on the streets of America might be the scum of the Earth. That doesn’t give us the right to be as cruel and unmerciful to them, as they are to their enemies.
We are supposed to be better than they are. That’s why we are supposed to be the “good guys”. What I can’t understand is why you and your fellow murderers can’t see that? You are probably the most hated man on the planet! You may think its Osama Bin Laden, but it’s not, it is you! You have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Do you think that you can do this without paying some kind of price?
You claim to be a religious man? I really can’t believe that. I believe that you are killing people so that the Oil Companies can get this Oil Law passed in Iraq. That’s a terrible thing to say, but that’s what I believe.
I also believe that you want to attack Iran.
I also believe that if you are given the chance, you will not step down in January, 2009.
I believe that if there is a natural or man-made disaster in this country, you will do whatever it talks to prolong your time in The White House.
Just because I believe this, doesn’t make it so, I realize that. What I do know however, if not for you and your gang of thugs that took control in a virtual coup in 2000, more than half a million people would be alive today, raising their children and singing songs, writing poetry, making love top their wives and husbands and adding their gift of life to this world.
You took that away from them. You and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice and all the others that can only see things their own way, have taken their most precious possession away from them.
George, the American People are slow to react, but once provoked they are also hard to control, and they never forget. If Nixon were alive, he’d tell you that. Think about what happened to him, and he didn’t do half of what you’ve done! The American People Know What Time It Is.
http://liberalpro.blogspot.com
Former Chairman of the Liberal Party of America, Tim is a retired Army Sergeant. He currently lives in South Carolina. A regular contributor to OpEdNews, he is the author of Kimchee Kronicles and is currently at work on a new novel.
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