The Man Behind the Curtain
By Anonymous Liberal Sunday Jun 24, 2007 12:01pmIf you haven't yet read the first two installments (1, 2) of the Washington Post's four part series on Dick Cheney's role in the Bush administration, go read them now. They're incredible. Barton Gellman and Jo Becker do an excellent job telling the behind-the-scenes story of how the Bush administration's various terrorism-related policies came into being. The articles confirm much of what has been suspected about Cheney's role and fill in many of the gaps. It's riveting stuff, and deeply disturbing.
There's enough stuff in the first two installments alone to fill 100 blog posts, easily. But since I don't have that kind of time, I want to focus on a few meta-observations.
(1) Conspicuously absent from nearly every important scene described in these articles is the President himself. Time and again we see the Vice President making decisions, attending meetings, and handling situations that really should be handled by the President personally. We also see the Vice President continually limiting or otherwise manipulating the information and advice that reaches the President's ear. We see him secretly intercepting memos intended for other cabinet officials, keeping key officials out of the loop on important decisions, and using other officials to disguise the provenance of advice originating from his office. The portrait that emerges is of a man with utter disdain for process and an almost messianic certainty in his beliefs, a man who has used his immense knowledge of the workings of the executive bureaucracy and his close relationship with a pliant, inexperienced president to effectively control national policy on all issues related to the "war on terror" for the last six years. Cheney really is the man behind the curtain.
(2) If you read between the lines in part two of the series, it seems pretty clear that Dick Cheney himself bears enormous responsibility for what happened at Abu Ghraib:
Shortly after the first accused terrorists reached the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Jan. 11, 2002, a delegation from CIA headquarters arrived in the Situation Room. The agency presented a delicate problem to White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, a man with next to no experience on the subject. Vice President Cheney's lawyer, who had a great deal of experience, sat nearby. The meeting marked "the first time that the issue of interrogations comes up" among top-ranking White House officials, recalled John C. Yoo, who represented the Justice Department. "The CIA guys said, 'We're going to have some real difficulties getting actionable intelligence from detainees'" if interrogators confined themselves to humane techniques allowed by the Geneva Conventions.
From that moment, well before previous accounts have suggested, Cheney turned his attention to the practical business of crushing a captive's will to resist. The vice president's office played a central role in shattering limits on coercion in U.S. custody, commissioning and defending legal opinions that the Bush administration has since portrayed as the initiatives, months later, of lower-ranking officials.
Cheney and his allies, according to more than two dozen current and former officials, pioneered a novel distinction between forbidden "torture" and permitted use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading" methods of questioning.
Later in the piece they write:
The vice president's counsel proposed that President Bush issue a carefully ambiguous directive. Detainees would be treated "humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of" the Geneva Conventions. When Bush issued his public decision two weeks later, on Feb. 7, 2002, he adopted Addington's formula -- with all its room for maneuver -- verbatim.
In a radio interview last fall, Cheney said, "We don't torture." What he did not acknowledge, according to Alberto J. Mora, who served then as the Bush-appointed Navy general counsel, was that the new legal framework was designed specifically to leave room for cruelty. In international law, Mora said, cruelty is defined as "the imposition of severe physical or mental pain or suffering." He added: "Torture is an extreme version of cruelty."
The piece then describes how David Addington, Cheney's lawyer, worked with John Yoo to draft a pair of secret memos on the use of torture. The first "narrowed the definition of 'torture' to mean only suffering 'equivalent in intensity' to the pain of 'organ failure ..... or even death.'" The second memo approved a laundry list of "enhanced techniques" including waterboarding. According to Gellman and Becker, neither Condoleezza Rice nor Colin Powell knew that such memos existed until it was reported by the Washington Post in 2004, an event which prompted an intense confrontation between Rice and Alberto Gonzales.
But here's where the link to Abu Ghraib comes in. According the article:
[John] Yoo said for the first time in an interview that he verbally warned lawyers for the president, Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that it would be dangerous as a matter of policy to permit military interrogators to use the harshest techniques, because the armed services, vastly larger than the CIA, could overuse the tools or exceed the limits. "I always thought that only the CIA should do this, but people at the White House and at DOD felt differently," Yoo said. The migration of those techniques from the CIA to the military, and from Guantanamo Bay to Abu Ghraib, aroused worldwide condemnation when abuse by U.S. troops was exposed.
In other words, the people who were championing the use of these new (illegal) interrogation techniques were specifically warned that if military interrogators were permitted to use them, it would be difficult to contain the spread of such practices and abuse was likely. In the best case, these warnings were disregarded, the techniques migrated, and the result was Abu Ghraib. In the worst case (which I suspect is more likely), the use of these enhanced techniques was affirmatively encouraged in all military theatres, not just Guantanamo, and the result was Abu Ghraib. Either way, the Office of the Vice President is directly responsible for stripping away the clear rules that had previously existed regarding the treatment of military detainees, a move that set the stage for what would later happen at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.
(3) Another meta-theme that emerges from the articles is how utterly self-destructive Cheney's legal crusades have been. Time and again you see smart lawyers within the administration (often ones who agree with Cheney substantively) warning him that the courts aren't going to accept certain arguments, and time and again you see Cheney ignoring this advice and insisting that the administration plow ahead. In every case, the courts ended up rejecting Cheney's views, and in the exact way the administration's own lawyers had predicted. As Bruce Fein, who is quoted in the piece, says:
"The irony with the Cheney crowd pushing the envelope on presidential power is that the president has now ended up with lesser powers than he would have had if they had made less extravagant, monarchical claims."
That's unquestionably true. The legal positions that Cheney demanded the administration take were so audacious and unsupportable that they essentially forced the courts to step in and rebuke the administration, thereby creating important legal precedents in areas where none previously existed. Had the administration adopted positions that were aggressive but not insane, the courts would likely have been more deferential.
That's all I've got for now, but like I said, there's a lot of stuff in these articles that is worth examining in more depth, and I hope to do so as time permits.
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IMPEACH.
"The irony with the Cheney crowd pushing the envelope on presidential power is that the president has now ended up with lesser powers than he would have had if they had made less extravagant, monarchical claims.”
That’s unquestionably true."
No it's not. Most of the President's signing statements have not been revealed. Those that have are appalling enough, and the assumption is that the more closely guarded statements are even more frightening.
No. I must disagree.
Makes that scene of him cowering behind the bushes seem even creepier, if that's possible.
The man behind the curtain and his posse won't be yielding the reins of power without a fight.
Prepare yourselves.
Rusty Shackleford @ 1:
Indeed, Impeachment at this point seems less political and more a matter of National Security.
Cheney is a danger to the Nation.
I hope some of this stuff will be added to Kucinich's, (who has been out in the lead on this one) articles of Impeachment.
Why say impeach? Aren't these actions categorically illegal? I say arrest, imprison, try, judge & sentence.
Impeachment would be a blessing to these convicts in waiting.
PNAAC Minister @ 4:
So you think martial law in October '08 is a very real possibility?
It may be the case that many of Bush's signing statements haven't been reported, but I don't think they're secret. And more importantly, I'm not questioning the fact that Cheney's power grabs have been successful in some areas. I do think it's unquestionably true, however, that Cheney's legal strategy has suffered some fairly major setbacks over the last few years (including three high-profile rebukes by the Supreme Court). Had Cheney been even a little more cautious in pursuing these powers, I really do think the Court would have more willing to defer to the executive branch. By stubbornly insisting on pursuing extremely aggressive and novel legal theories, Cheney has succeeded in a creating a body of case law that undermines everything he believes in.
Equilibrio, YES!!!
I've been advocating impeaching both Bush and Cheney for years BECAUSE of National Security. Every day these ass-clowns are in office is another day we are all at risk. Their agenda does not match their job descriptions. Hence, we are at a loss for real leadership at a this critical time. How many more incidents and disasters are needed for people to understand the incompentence of this WH and to do something about it?
Joe Klein’s conscience,
I think a rather large distraction may be just around the bend.
When you think about our representative government, you realize that Cheney is the ultimate representative - of the MI complex.
On OVP legal "non compliance" with standards on security, 32 CFR 2800 applies:
[Link for details]
No merit to any OVP legal counsel assertion that the OVP is not subject to any oversight on security requirements. The OVP legal counsel has illegally blocked audits and enforcement of the Federal Code. This is actionable under DC Bar Rules 1.16, compelling OVP legal counsel to withdraw for engaging in illegal conduct; or permitting, as is the case here, their services being used to block enforcement of the law, or prevent compliance with legal requirements.
Cheney is not the man behind the curtain - It's worse. The bumbling dope (Bush) behind the curtain is the fake, while the angry demon is the real thing. . .
Seriously, how can the Democrats continue to run away from the question of impeachment? There is plenty of evidence of law breaking and high crimes. The Democrats are not only ignoring the will of the people, they are also ignoring their constitutional duty.
What's the difference between the man behind the curtains, and the man in the closet?
Hannibal Cheney eats Uncle Sam
check it out
Defeat Bu$hie Яepublikans...Steal these pics
I realized that Cheney was the man behind the curtain and the meta-observation #1 back when Vanity Fair ran their cover "War and Destiny"
http://cgi.ebay.com/Vanity-Fairs-WAR-AND-DESTINY-pix-by-Annie-Leibovitz_...
Who is seated front and center in the position of power and authority: Cheney
Who's his right hand man: Powell
Who's off back to the left looking like a chimp: Chimpy
It's been there to see all along.
The arrogance of these criminals never ceases to amaze me. Torture??? Who would've thought that America would ever act in such a way. It's absolutely disgusting.
Torture, indefinite detentions, wars and the like are NOT what this country was found on.
Torture is morally repugnant and is in complete opposition to the morals of a free society. On top of it, there's nothing in the Constitution which allows them to do it.
period.
Some follow up reading:
Should the US Military be allowed to use Torture?
http://www.populistamerica.com/should_the_u_s__military_be_allowed_to_use_torture
For six years I have thought Cheney would step down at the opportune time for the party to provide for their presidential candidates advantage. I expected it to happen when he got his batteries changed next month,or shortly thereafter.
I think now that he is so corrupt that there are no limits to what he is willing to do, and that any ideas we might have of what he intends to do will be faulty, because we cannot imagine anything that vile.
ps, I like the new format
After grabbing all this power, there is absolutely no way cheney (bush) will give it up. There will be a coup before the 2008 election, and they will assume power permanently. Just wait and see. Bomb Iran and declare war anyone.
For the Democrats to continue to ignore this issue will be reason enough for many to vote for whomever is running that is not a member of either major party. To ignore and not impeach and not to put an immediate stop to the crimes being committed by this administration makes them just as guilty.
Instead of challenging and doing their job they have become nothing more than another rubber stamp congress. They have been a terrible disappointment.
... and the TV news media covers Paris Hilton, forest fires, high-speed police chases and Congress debates spend money we don't have, laws that can't be enforced and 'intelligence' in the context of knowing what is going on.
Hank @ 13:
You don't need to have a 'high crime' to impeach, though Bush and Cheney have certainly committed many.
A 'misdemeanor' will do. That covers a lot of ground.
equilibrio...that's some photo. The pose. Cheney's expression. Looks like the photographer certainly "got it".
From what I've read (so far) of the summary, Gonzales is absolutely key. No wonder Bush and Cheney need this guy to stay. If he goes, the house of cards tumbles.
JohnnyThief @ 6:
DITTO THAT!!!
Cheney is the dictator and Bush is the ship
or is it
Bush is the dictator and Cheney is the ship?
Glad to be Canadian!! There are some great things about a parliamentary system,.. like question period!
My ?'s why aren't all the signing statements made public? Why? And do other Governments do this? And is there any limits on what the Pres can and cannot do with signing statement? Could he make a signing statement making him win a lottery if he wanted? Shut down a tv station? Grant himself further powers unchecked? (OH yeah,... he did that last month) If history repeats itself what is America about to repeat?
It truely would be... so why don't we all stop using the 'I' word and start the cry for the next guy to give NO PARDON FOR BUSH AND CHENEY!!!!
IMPEACH... As the fourth is coming up I think we should all dedicate some portion of this coming week to write to Pelosi, Read, and you're congressmen and senators to demand impeachment of Cheney and then Bush. I know I am.
Spot-on analysis, AL. I think your first item, on the absence of Bush, is especially important. In The One Percent Doctrine, it's clear that this is by design and Bush likes his bubble. In an incident described in the book, Cheney kept basic briefing information from Bush as well, so Bush wound up utterly unprepared for a diplomatic meeting. Bush is not a "reader," though, and doesn't like detail, as the first installment of the WaPo series points out yet again.
With Cheney, what's always struck me is how ruthless he is about getting his way even though he's almost always wrong. Or, as you wrote: "The portrait that emerges is of a man with utter disdain for process and an almost messianic certainty in his beliefs." The Bush administration makes bad decisions because they have bad policies to begin with, but also because Cheney, Bush and others have set up a bad decision-making process, that bypasses or crushes most dissent and most rational analysis or discussion. Bush doesn't honest or intelligent brokers, but he likes it that way, I suspect in large part due to his own insecurities. He can't compete with experts or thoughtful people, but he can invoke God, his own power, or his "gut" as a trump card. Cheney always gets 2-3 chances at Bush for every one chance others get, and Cheney plays him like a fiddle (as the Constitution burns).
Robust questioning. Cigarette burns all over someone's body (includes eyes and genitals).
Hey, doesn't cause organ failure or death so quit bitching. Cheney knows best. Sigh, I had a dream Cheney was being waterboarded -- sadly, I woke up.
A credible bio about Cheney's legendary characteristics, flaws & failures was published in 2004 by journalist John Nichols. Called DICK: THE MAN WHO IS PRESIDENT (The New Press), it was routinely ignored by the Mainstream Media, including The Washington Post. (They are pretty late to this story, which is hard to fathom as he has been a mover/shaker for some time.) Mr. Cheney's long history is worth noting. What we are seeing is his apotheosis, and it isn't pretty...unless you think fascism is pretty.
America could start the process of restoring some dignity to our nation by impeaching and then jailing Dick Cheney. Let's make it happen.
btw, I liked the old message board format much better. Easier to read and faster for response comments. Not sure why the change.
This has been common knowledge to most of us for years...so much so, I recall seeing a bumper sticker at least in 2004 that read: Impeach The Man Behind The Cretin!
Another meta issue I've written about at Unbossed is whether this series was written, or at least drafted, months ago and left on the shelf until now. There are several indications of this, as I discuss. One of the most blatant is a reference to an interview done last October. Is this another case of a newspaper too timid to publish what it's got on the Bush administration?
He wants it to go to the courts, after all, nothing happens after they rule!
As to why Cheney is doing what he is doing in pushing the envelope . . . the simple answer I suppose is that even though now everyone is (finally) coming to realize he's insane, no one is stepping up to the plate and saying no, you can't do that. There have been NO CONSEQUENCES.
Gitmo still exists. A bunch of low level soldiers are in the brig. Waterboarding has given way to years in solitary confinement in nice, clean, sensory deprived conditions. Perhaps those in custody will get habeas restored, but that's a legal battle of years.
US forces remain in Iraq, and according to most all of the Presidential candidates, left and right, will remain there for some time. Iran could still get bombed.
Cheney recognizes that politics takes time and that if you by-pass the established channels it takes forever for people to reach consensus on what they can and should do. Our problem is that there is the real possibility for people worse than Cheney to inhabit these offices later and precedent is precedent if no one takes a stand.
The smart move, from the progressive side, is to impeach Cheney swiftly for his violations of national security law. But swiftly never happens and thus we're left with this.
The authorities should arrest and hold Cheney without bail and prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law. Skip impeachment. It only prolongs the inevitable conviction.
John Dean spelled out the basic idea more than a year ago in Conservatives Without Conscience. Cheney and his staff are really running the show; Bush's people are clueless about policy and spend most of their time trying to put a positive spin on the administration's Cheney-led misadventures.
Sort of explains why the nominal leader of the most powerful nation on earth feels compelled to remind people that he is "the decider." He's obviously had some doubts himself, and this Post series isn't going to make him or his staff any less insecure.
We see him secretly intercepting memos intended for other cabinet officials, keeping key officials out of the loop on important decisions, and using other officials to disguise the provenance of advice originating from his office.
---This would be, ostensibly so that when the President asks the VP his opinion he can wholeheartedly agree with the advice that the VP himself asked to be generated. The president is left with the impression that more than one advisor has weighed in and....
Which reminded me of this...
BILL MOYERS: The-- the Cheney-- office didn't make any-- didn't leak to you that there's gonna be a big story?
TIM RUSSERT: No. No. I mean, I don't-- I don't have the-- this is, you know, on MEET THE PRESS, people come on and there are no ground rules. We can ask any question we want. I did not know about the aluminum-tube story until I read it in the NEW YORK TIMES.
BILL MOYERS: Critics point to September eight, 2002 and to your show in particular, as the classic case of how the press and the government became inseparable.
Someone in the administration plants a dramatic story in the NEW YORK TIMES And then the Vice President comes on your show and points to the NEW YORK TIMES. It's a circular, self-confirming leak.
TIM RUSSERT: I don't know how Judith Miller and Michael Gordon reported that story, who their sources were. It was a front-page story of the NEW YORK TIMES. When Secretary Rice and Vice President Cheney and others came up that Sunday morning on all the Sunday shows, they did exactly that.
---Planting a story in one news outlet then going on the Sunday morning shows and pointing to the article as independently reported truth....this is starting to look familiar....
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/transcript1.html
EJG @ 20:
That's the kind of political naivite that has gotten us into this trouble in the first place. Voting for third party candidates, in our winner-take-all political system is worse than not voting at all. You're asking the the Democratic party to do what you want, and then threatening to go home and sulk when they don't. The Republican right was in the same position in the mid 60s, and they went to work taking over their party. This ultimately resulted in their taking over the country.
Politics isn't a buffet where you choose from what's been offered. Politics is an opportunity to take your destiny in your own hands and do something for yourself and others. We have two parties that have a chance at winning control of the country. Choose one and go to work.
That's a good comparison, S.C. Cheney used the same techniques on the press that he used internally with the president.
The penalty for abuse of office in the US system is impeachment first then, and only then, prosecution. Typically, impeachment is enough.
I really don't want to waste time with such things as impeachment and all that, but seriously, we have an administration that all but says f*ck you to each and every constituency in the US, not to mention the rest of the world (god, forbid, we all play well with others). Dick, not W, is the administration. W is just the Ralph Lauren ad.
At some point, enough is enough. The VP is not part of the executive, give me a frickin' break. The VP is not covered by this or that, but everyone else is. Really?!? Is that what we want to hear from the next administration or the one after that?
This is not healthy for our republic and puts us no closer to being a true democracy. They are waiting out the clock and the collective sigh of releif that will be heard 'round the world upon their departure. There's not much that can be done, except the things that no one wants to do. So, here we are, for the next how many months?
The legal positions that Cheney demanded the administration take were so audacious and unsupportable that they essentially forced the courts to step in and rebuke the administration, thereby creating important legal precedents in areas where none previously existed. Had the administration adopted positions that were aggressive but not insane, the courts would likely have been more deferential.
I disagree. Cheney is not reckless, he is deliberate and methodical. Legal precedents are of little value or pretection today.
The rule of law is finished for BushCo, the "rebukes" don't matter to them and never did.
Check out State of Exception: Bush's war on the rule of law in the July Harpers magazine.
These "rebukes" are actually roadmaps for BushCo to refine their legal arguments at some future date for a packed Supreme Court. They had to start somewhere and now they have. Just look at today's decision on a student's sign on public property :"Bongs hits for Jesus" Where do you think this is leading?
I took the leap and read the full body of both articles. I feel sick, literally, to my stomach. I liken it to knowing theoretically that people die in car accidents (before reading the articles) to being on the scene and watching the blood, bone and muscle crushed and shredded (after reading the articles).
Dick Cheney is the underbelly of George W. Bush
Can the world please send us some troops?
"Cheney has succeeded in a creating a body of case law that undermines everything he believes in."
Cheney only believes in himself therefore he has created a body of case law that will be his demise.
"That same day, Aug. 1, 2002, Yoo signed off on a second secret opinion, the contents of which have never been made public. According to a source with direct knowledge, that opinion approved as lawful a long list of specific interrogation techniques proposed by the CIA -- including waterboarding, a form of near-drowning that the U.S. government classified as a war crime in 1947.
The opinion drew the line against one request: threatening to bury a prisoner alive."
Cheney will declare himself permanent "vice president" and never leave as long as his mechanical heart keeps whirring.
po @ 41:
I'm not sure on how the resignation came about with Spiro Agnew but, it seems he was forced to resign after the criminal charges were brought against him.
Spiro was indicted for tax evasion, not for anything he did while in office.
Does Cheney control any military or quasi-military units? Or will We, the People find that out later?
And impeachment is still "off the table"?
Rusty B. Shakleford @ 43:
More like Cheney is the one pulling the strings to turn "theoretical" accidents into real ones.
What really bothers me, is not one person, not once, ever, looked at him and said "You're just the Vice President. You don't have this authority. Get lost!"
"Bush: Worst President Ever" must now be replaced with "Cheney: Worst President Ever
There is no Bush , there is only Cheney.
Cheney and this administration is case and point that there's room for improvement for the executive branch in terms of checks and balances. There will be no political or criminal indictments against Cheney and the Bush cartel. But did we will learn anything from these last seven nightmarish years ? Will congress at least re-examine the executive branch's role and reinforce checks and balances through new legislation? Ha. At going rate, our new congress will let us down again.
If you want justice, our only hope is a faulty pace maker or an unlucky trip to Iraq. Other than that, good luck with that.
Would somebody please just give Dick a b*j* so we could get him impeached?
Slideguy @ 39 says
Do you realize the last two sentences of this paragraph DIRECTLY contradicts the first?
IMHO the notion that a political party can "win control of the country" is what is wrong with our political system.
You should advocate ending the "winner take all" system with something like Instant Runoff Voting, rather than serving up a buffet of the two Brand Name parties.
http://fairvote.org/?page=19
Biggus Diggus @ 46:
Or the hamster in the exercise wheel powering cheney's ICD keels over with a heart attack.
32 CFR 2800 review shows OVP legal counsel has been reckless; and has provided misleading information. OVP is fully required to comply with security requirements.
There can't be an impeachment until these guys frighten enough Republicans. It all hangs on getting enough votes in the House. At the moment, we don't have them.
Impeachment is essentially political. Both times it's occurred, it didn't happen because of real "high cirmes and misdemeanors", it occurred because the president was seen as an impediment to the wishes of an opposition party that had enough votes to begin proceedings, and both times it was barely voted down in the Senate.
Neither Cheney nor Bush will be impeached by this Congress. They both have too much protection in the House.
Since Bush has made it his life long endeavor to vindicate Freud's Oedipus theory, I wonder if George will now get drunk and challenge Cheney to go mano a mano with Dick.
There's gotta be some way to stop a mechanical pace maker...
There’s gotta be some way to stop a mechanical pace maker…
If we could find some way to plunge Haliburton stock to 1 cent a share. I think that would do it.
The biggest favor you can do for you elders and your kids is make these neo-con artists, looters, war criminals and global grifters own this goatfuck. Don't let them and their enablers -- whether from the media, the croneyhood or the toothless opposition trying to score cheap campaign points -- brick over who's really responsible for the atrocious record of the worst administrations in history.
They're already moving the pieces of their excuses and denials into place for a shared tale glossing over what someone or other did -- George, and Dick, and Scooter and Alberto and Condi can barely remember -- and now that '08 is upon us, who is it really productive or positive to go into who said what ...
The factual record (as opposed to the shouted, nebulous rhetorical one) is too verifiably meticulous and horrendous to brush off. They rode the glory to marshall power but now they're trying to spread the blame and share the shame. Hang it around their necks like carrion.
It's the only way to keep them from sanitizing their crimes and treasons to be able to come back yet again and making it even worse for future generations. It's bad enough future generations are already on the hook to pay for most of the elective disaster, but the dollar expense will be the least of the shameful legacy.
DICK is aptly named. Who didn't know this man is evil?? I pray every day that his implanted device (I think the only one he has is a cardiac pacemaker) will fail.
If that does not occur between now and wehn he gets hi battery charged, then Congress must move forward with impeachment, conviction and sentencing. I believe there may be one or two empty cells availabe at Gitmo! The rule of law is much more important than any man.
i just went over to impeachcheney.org and added my name to the petition. they have almost a million signatures.
i then called Nancy Pelosi's office at (202) 225-0100 and expressed my concerns related to the article and followed up with a written request that she initiate impeachment proceedings at her web page: http://www.speaker.gov/contact
this took about 4 minutes of my time.
will anything come of this? probably not. is it better than getting angry in vain? yes
I am amazed by the number of people who are complaining that the Democratic Congress is not doing enough to counter Bush/Cheney. The Democrats do not have sufficient seats in Congress and certainly not in the Senate to overturn a Presidential Veto. Deciding to vote for a third party (Nader, for example) merely strengthens the Republican position. It doesn't really matter what you think of the Democrats, they are the only plausible opposition to the Republicans. Either vote for the Democrats or assist the current White House. It really is that simple.
IMPEACH. He has violated his oath of office. If this doesn't qualify as "high crimes and misdemenors" I don't know what does.
Bob Roberts @ 64:
That's a copout by the Dems and anyone who supports them.
To kill a veto you need a 2/3rd's majority in the House and Senate. That's 287 Congressmen with 55 having to jump ship from the Republican side. In the Senate that requires 66 total Senators which means only 17 Republicans ( or 15 if Bernie Sanders and Lieberman help out ) need to vote counter party.
I did 10 minutes of internet searching and came up with the names of 13 current Republicans in the House and Senate that are either people who have oppose Bush policy, are up for re-election in the next election or are the Do-Nothing types. That's with 10 minutes of research and little to no political experience. I'm sure somebody PAID to do it would do better. All the Dems need to do is put pressure on these guys. Lean on them. Make sure the public knows they're on Bush's side. They'll all fold like a house a cards because the ones that are up for re-election aren't going to get re-elected if they're Bushies.
To impeach they need simple majority in the house in order to draft the Articles of Impeachment and pass it to the Senate. That means 217 votes to impeach. Not even all the Democrats have to SHOW UP for that one. Hell 14 of them could sleep through it and the vote would still pass.
In the Senate they now begin an investigation into the charges by the house. This is just like an criminal indictment. The lovely thing about it is, United States v Nixon set the precedent that the President and Vice President cannot use executive privilege to hide information from the investigation. So all that bullshit about emails disappearing and aids not testifying is null and void.
To convict, the Senate needs a 2/3d's Majority. As with a veto override, this only requires 17 Republicans to agree with the charges and vote 'Guilty'.
It's not that hard to get done. In fact it's harder to override a veto than it is to actually impeach. You just need to mobilize your forces and demoralize your enemy. The Republicans are already demoralized because many of them are seeing a future on the unemployment line after Bush's administration. They're also worried about reprisals from the soon to me super majority Democrats.
So why aren't the Dems pushing for Impeachment? Because they're fucking cowards, that's why!
They know that if they wait it out, this war remains Bush's war and the Republicans will suffer because of it. If they impeach the pres and/or vice pres it will fall to them to fix the problems with the War and they know they can't do it without pissing off large segments of the population. Either they keep the troops there in some fashion and piss off the anti-war crowd or they withdraw and piss off the pro-war crowd. Basically, just like with the Republicans, the Democrats are using the troops as a political football in order to win elections and are shirking their Constitutionally appointed duties to protect US from an out of control executive branch.
Bush has violated FISA, that is an actionable felony and grounds for impeachment and best of all he has publicly admitted that he's done it. Remember when he had his pet AG toddle out and say that his administration would now comply with the FISA regulations? There ya go. Bush, Cheney and Gonzales all claimed that ignoring FiSA was a good idea and all three of them have advocated Constitutional violations. Bush himself seems to like torture. Torture is against the law.
All that the Dems need to do is grow a set and demand impeachment. They can investigate from there to prove whether or not the President is guilty and if he tries to stifle the investigation he will get busted for it.
Impeachment isn't on the table because Nancy Pelosi is a fricken coward too afraid to really stand up and do her job. All these elected assholes, including Bush, Cheney and Gonzales are supposed to Defend and Uphold the Constitution. None of them are doing it. THey serve themselves, not us and they deserved to be removed from office at the very least.
Bush himself deserves prison time.
66 E in MD Says: "So why aren’t the Dems pushing for Impeachment? Because they’re effing cowards, that’s why!"
Uuhhhummm...I don't think they are cowards...uhhh...I think they are in on it.
...read "IDIOT" of a President.
Take all his funding away. Great idea.
But I would definitely prefer indicted on War Crimes, all and every cent he or his family owns (because the vast majority of it came from War Profiteering) and have him jailed for life (preferably in G'Bay or a Jail in Iraq !) Nothing, nothing is too bad for Cheney, he is without doubt in my mind as evil as a man can be. Him and Rove make a lovely pair running the country into the ground.
I'm not religious by any stretch, but Rove & Cheney have me almost believing that their is a Satan and that these Two are working with him to destroy as much as they possibly can.
Who decoded that Cheney was to run as VP on Shrub's ticket anyway? I say fry Darth Cheney AND all the minions on his payroll - the man/machine is evil incarnate.
And who's been calling it CheneyBushCo for years?
(Hint: It's Me. That's right ME. That's the only hint you'll get out of ME).
There was a coup in 2000. There was an "attack" on 9/11. These guys are not leaving. You don't commit these acts simply to walk away cause you "got yours". No, you institute a "constitutional dictatorship" on the way to a Unity government. The Democrats are in this up to their eyebrows. It is now the War Party in charge. And both wings are on the same page.
Strike/boycott in 08! Boycott the rigged elections (what does it matter who is "elected") cause you won't be able to tell the difference. Strike as workers and consumers to dry up the funding for the war machine.
He can't be the man behind the curtain. His belly would stick out.
(Sorry.)
These people should not just be removed from power. These people should be persecuted with the full force of the international law. ("Full force"... yeah, right. When was Kissinger persecuted for his role in Chile? Or for that matter, any "democratic" leader for ugly, behind the curtain operations? For facilitating the Iraq-Iran war? When was an American ever persecuted under international law? When was an American ever persecuted for war crimes? Bomber Harris pops into mind, but there were others, too...)
Reality check people:
1. There will not be an impeachment unless most of the country supports it. The few angry liberals who post on blogs like this do not represent the majority of the American people. Too many people, conservatives and traditional swing voters alike, have too much invested in the current administration to let impeachment happen.
2. Nothing anyone writes will convince those who think the two parties are identical. However, for those who merely think that the Democrats are the lesser of two evils, I suggest that the time to vote for a third party is only after the Republicans have been so crippled that the Democrats have secured supermajorites in both houses and have held the White House for at least 4 successive terms. In other words...never.
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