Cheney on the President's war powers: 'fully consistent with the Constitution and with the laws of the land'
By John Amato Sunday Dec 21, 2008 11:02am
Dick Cheney goes on his favorite network, FOX, to close out his career. There's nothing to be gained going on Meet the Press since there aren't any talking points needed to be pushed on the American people, like starting an illegal war and all so Wallace gets the interview. And as always his hubris is shocking. Cheney and his Band of Neocons lied this country into a war with Iraq as they created Bush's Doctrine. (Preemptive war.)
And he sits there with the rest of BushCO., trying to create a new narrative to cover their tracks about the war. It's the fault of "The Intelligence". I can see Stewart now talking to a big floppy-eared College Football mascot named Intelligence and asking him why he f*&ked up Cheney. Dick created the intelligence that was used to bring us to war.
WALLACE: What do you think are the powers of the president relative to Congress and the courts during the war?
CHENEY: I think they're very significant, and I think they have to be. And I think there's ample precedent for that. I mean, the fact of the matter is that, especially given the kind of conflict we're faced with today, we find ourselves in a situation where I believe you need strong executive leadership.
What we did in this administration is to exert that kind of authority. We did it in a manner that I believe and the lawyers that we looked to for advice believed was fully consistent with the Constitution and with the laws of the land. And there's, I say, ample precedent for it.
WALLACE: If you could conceptualize it for me, sir, what do you think are the powers of the president relative to Congress and relative to the courts during war?
CHENEY: Well, I think in wartime, when you consider his responsibilities as commander in chief, clearly that means command of the armed forces.
It also, when you get into use of forces in wartime, means collecting intelligence. And therefore, I think you're fully justified in setting up a terror surveillance program to be able to intercept the communications of people who are communicating with terrorists outside the United States.
I think you can have a robust interrogation program with respect to high-value detainees. Now, those are all steps we took that I believe the president was fully authorized in taking and provided invaluable intelligence which has been the key to our ability to defeat Al Qaida over these last seven years.
WALLACE: This is at the core of the controversies that I want to get to with you in a moment. If the president during war decides to do something to protect the country, is it legal?
CHENEY: General proposition, I'd say yes. You need to be more specific than that. I mean — but clearly, when you take the oath of office on January 20th of 2001, as we did, you take the oath to support and defend and protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
There's no question about what your responsibilities are in that regard. And again, I think that there are bound to be debates and arguments from time to time, and wrestling back and forth, about what kind of authority is appropriate in any specific circumstance.
But I think that what we've done has been totally consistent with what the Constitution provides for.
Rendition, torture, warrantless wiretapping, attacking countries that didn't attack us. Yes, he has made the Constitution proud.
As Think Progress points out: Cheney Echoes Nixon
Cheney’s answer is eerily reminiscent of former President Richard Nixon’s claim that “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” Nixon made the comment in his famous interview with David Frost, responding to a question about whether “there are certain situations” in which “the president can decide that it’s in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal.”
I wish he could have been frogmarched out of FOX's studios along with Roger Ailes as a co-conspirator. We know about that stuff because of Fitzgerald and he refused to comment about Fitz.
WALLACE: Let's talk about prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.
CHENEY: I'm going to pass on that.
WALLACE: What about the criticism that in the Blagojevich case, as in the Libby case, he doesn't just stay within the four corners of the
indictment, but he makes political comments?CHENEY: I'm going to pass on that.
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First!
Also, I can't wait until he is out of office. He has to be the first person I can honestly say that I would not cry about if he passed away. While I wouldn't wish it upon him or his family, I still wouldn't cry. Not after the way he has destroyed this nation.
He's convinced Dana Perino though. At a Press Secretaries' conference she explained that the cretin in chief hadn't authorized torture, since they got some lawyers to say it wasn't torture. at http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.p...
I hope Cheney really believes the $**t coming out of his mouth. That will make it easier to prosecute him.
It is TIME FOR A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.
something to short his pacemaker out. What the heck! It's live TV, right!
Freaking ghoul. I bet he bleeds ice water.
What a Dick
or..what a ****.
The one man in America more fucked up than Dubya.
Because he KNOWS the shit they've done over these miserable years has been so wrong and illegal.
Stop fucking lying there is no legal declaration of war.
The constitution cannot be amended by passing an act ie the war powers ACT, the use of force against Iraq ACT.
Can the senate pass an act called the three senator ACT, thereby giving each state three senators. Neither can the senate pass some group of great sounding words eliminating the only way to commit our military to war, namely the power to declare war by the congress.
So it's all a fucking lie and EVERYTHING done without a declaration of war is TREASON.
These bastards have committed high crimes according to the constitution that has not been amanded as they would like us to believe.
The problem with the United States is violent white trash like Cheney and Bush. As long as violent white trash like this continues to exist that country will continue to be a threat to the world. Obama may be a fresh start, we shall see.
Cheney and Bush have committed HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS and America is letting them get away with it!
Hitler said the same thing when he committed the atrocities of World War 2. In fact, EVERY dictator in the world believed that they were protecting their country and their interests!
Are we a nation of criminals?
Yes. Absolutely! Thanks Nancy.
Even Saddam argued to his band of conspirators that the president of Iraq (that Saddam ousted) was too weak to defend Iraq against Iran and therefore he was obligated to act....
And as Saddam said "the law is anything that I write on a piece of paper..." the same is true of Cheney... Or in his case "anything is legal that I can get David Addington or John Yoo" to argue is legal in a whitepaper...."
The USSR maybe? Cuba? Somalia? In the US, pal, our elected officials are sworn to UPHOLD the Constitution, not ignore the parts that you deem inconvenient brcause you want an imperial Presidency with unlimited power and no accountability.
What you are trying to do is reestablish the corrupt monarchy that our Founding Fathers gave their lives to overthrow. They had specific checks and balances embedded in our system so power obsessed fascists like you would not succeed. I will be so glad to see you gone and pray that we never hear your evil, sorry ass voice ever again.
For everyone to just be happy to see them ride off in the sunset. We have to demand they be held accountable by writing, calling or emailing congress. If we just sit back and do nothing and let them fade away then we become just as guilty as they are.
What they did was wrong, illegal and they have to be held accountable. But they think it wasn't. And so do most of the Republicans in Congress...that's why we have to let them know we won't stand for it.
Pelosi won`t let you. She has even warned Obama not to mess with Congress.
Obama should push for new leadership in the House and Senate both.
I've been doing that for over 4 years. Got lots 'o form letters back that said essentially, no thanks. If you really still believe that your "representatives" in Congress are really representing you or give a hoot what you think,..... you need to think again.
the lynchpin that holds the axis of evil together.
The epitome of evil.
It's evil. Don't touch it!
Satan's role model
In the good old days a man's place in history mattered to him. I don't think for Cheney his place in history matters at all. He used the entire eight years to set himself up for a comfortable and rich retirement. The rest of America and the reputation of our great republic be damned.
They are totallly convicence that can do with us whatever they want.
That's the biggest problem...One point in case. I just read the TARP money was used to pay bonuses to some high bank employees.
What kind of crap is that.
I've been saying this for qute a while. Seven months ago I posted the fact that at the end of the 8 years, the Bush administration will resort to some unsual economic situation that will take place in the Government that would facilitate the Republicans to totally ransack the National Treasury. What is left, that is. Here we have it. I will also go as far as to claim that the whole situation like, the gasoline, price, the manufacturing of vehicles that the public don't really want to buy, the hemorrhage of jobs out of this country, all these have been thoughtfully plan, (I'm not even including Iraq) and these are the end results. The coup de grace! But we Americans are too F.U.C.K.I.N.G naive with not enough testosteron to claim what belong to us. Then again, there stand Erik Prince and his "men" waiting for the right opportunity. Do you really think that Black Water is just plain coincidence?
I know a lot of us (angry, far-left) Dems are anxious about just what the Obama administration is going to accomplish after taking office but if they don't go after Cheney for war crimes we all will suffer for it and America will have taken a turn towards oblivion.
Fully consistent with Despots and Dictators throughout history.
A true full blown Sociopath.
Amen!
... and the laws of the land." NOT.
I thought Obama promised an investigation into the actions of these people once in office. Did he renege on that promise, or will we finally find true Constitutional justice in my lifetime?
Didn't you get the memo? We're turning the page. Little did we know that "turning the page" meant forgetting and forgiving all past sins no matter how egregious.
its to bad you people in your zeal to elect a president with no backbone for going after these criminal pieces of shit had your way and let these scumbag turds get off with thier crimes, to bad you didnt see that dennis kucinich was the right man for that job , guess you cant see the forest for the trees, obamas a corporate owned whore, as was the bush cruds!
and the dismissive 'So?' or 'So what?' comments by the whole lot of them that makes me want to hurl. Not to mention the complicity of the media in allowing them to get away with their crimes. Chrissie Wallace must enjoy the taste of Dick's dick.
Disgusting.
Unrepentant terrorist.
Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't go into Goering at Nuremberg mode and claim there'd be statues of him and shrub all over the Fatherland 50 years from now.
Cheney admits having told a sitting US Senator to fuck himself and this is the good part, Dick says he thinks it was warranted at the time. What an unrepentant Dick.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/21/chen...
You know what else is warranted Dick? Your ass being shipped off to the Hague to stand trial for mass murder, war crimes and for crimes against humanity.
Is that the Dick Cheney who with George W. Bush did what DEMOCRAT Franklin Delano Roosevelt did by putting people in jail and concentration camps because of their race. Or the DEMOCRAT Woodrow Wilson who jailed Americans under the sedition act without Habeas Corpus, or Abraham Lincoln who use the sedition act to jail Americans without trial.
Are these the same president and vice president, who didn't allow a single American innocent citizen to die on American streets, unlike DEMOCRAT Bill Clinton who allowed Osama bin Laden to plan and carry out 911 when he could put him in jail during his administration and who treated the terrorist war on American civilians as a police action or went to war in Bosnia without congressional or UN resolutions.
I wonder what you America-haters would do had there been 100 attacks with America blood running our streets. You'd have been cussing Bush and Cheney for failing to tap phones, put people in jail under the sedition act and waterboard everybody in sight, especially if it was your children who were killed. You all are haters of the first, second and third kind. You hate Bush because he was able to do what Clinton couldn't. You hate America for standing up to the killers. What are you going to do when Obama bombs Pakistan?
about illegal detention Of Japanese Americans during WWII. I mean not that a national apology and reparations paid would indicate that there is anything wrong with it...........
It was wrong for FDR, Wilson and Lincoln to do what they did, but that does not discount the fact that President Bush and Vice President Cheney broke the law. Their enablers in Courts and a Congress to weak to do anything are just as bad.
The September 11 attacks occurred on Bush's watch. He was in office for 9 months. Stop trying to blame it on Clinton. He was no saint, but there were positives to his administration, unlike the current one where the only positive I can think of is the charity given to the third world. At least FDR had the nerve to try the Nazis. Bush just wants to keep them in Gitmo or torture them in a third country. Many of the people in Gitmo were just taken off the streets and have nothing to do with terrorism. Clinton also kept America safe. After he was in office for 1 month terrorists attacked the WTC. That was the last attack on the homeland before Sept 11. As most countries agree and even a report from the Bush Admin, which he quashed, said handling terrorism is a police action. Terrorism cannot be won by wars.
As for bin Laden, Clinton tried to kill him. Bush said he was not so important. Actually Bush used his name only to scare people. If it was so important to get bin Laden, why to Bush discount intelligence prior to September 11 and he has had almost 8 years to get him. Nothing has been accomplish.
The bombing of Yugoslavia was a NATO action and did not require the authorization of Congress. I would have liked to see something in Congress, but it was not a full scale war, like Iraq. We are also not occupying the country. And there were several UN resolutions regarding Kosovo and Yugoslavia.
So where do you want to start with Bush and Cheney? Cheney does not have to keep records because he has his own branch of government? Disregard of Habeas Corpus? Spying on Americans in this country without a warrant (against FISA)?
Now we have one of the worst economies since the 1930s, more people without health insurance, stale wages, allowing more poison inour drinking water, more jobs leaving the country, etc. What a great legacy Bush is leaving behind.
Because he did something Clinton did not do---sent the greedmeisters of Wall Street to destroy our economy with their self centered perfidy.
Terrorists are small time when you have these assclowns to tear America down. And another thing Haunyocker---spare us your paranoid "what if" projection and speculation.
The f*cker has the nerve to sit there with an American flag pin on his lapel.
Couldn't that be considered flag desecration?
What Cheney is basically doing is echoing what Richard Nixon said, where he declared that if the president does it, then that [supposedly] makes it legal. Unfortunately, the problem is that even though, as another commenter correctly noted, only Congress has the power to declare war, Congress has repeatedly enabled the president, whomever it may be, to invade third world countries whenever he pleases. This carte blanche attitude by Congress will apparently continue in 2009 when Obama will send even more troops [with the tacit approval of Congress] into that quagmire known as Afghanistan. Democrats can complain all they want about the illegality of Bush's actions but if Obama fulfills his pledge of sending more American soldiers into Afghanistan, where they can contribute to the suffering and destruction of Afghan civilians, they they are just as complicit as the Republicans in being the agents of American aggression against third world countries.
is something Cheney said which astonished me.
Chrissie asked him what the high point of the last eight years was and Cheney's answer was '9-11'. WTF? That was the day Cheney got to play president while idiot-boy sat in a Florida classroom staring off into space.
No wonder it was such a high point for him. He finally got to implement all of the nefarious plans which had been brewing for so long inside his evil brain.
Unbelievable.
Cheney's bio shows he didn't do well in school so knowing or reading and understanding the contitution is out. He learned on the job working for Nixon. Now he might wish he had read the US Constitution when the down fall comes. Nixon committed crimes against the USA and got away with it. Cheney committed crimes against the USA and the World and wont get away with it. Rice will sit back and let the United Nations bring criminal charges against the Bush Administration. Leahy will file civi charges and get our stolen money back. Let's see if Cheney is still smiling when he's in jail and broke. Look's like his wife will have to write another dirty sex book for money it's just the way the Cheney's think and act.
There is no possible way you can interpret or find any article in the Constitution that gives or even implies unfettered power to the President in time of war or at any other time. Furthermore, no interpretation of any clause in the War Powers Act may be legally interpreted to suspend a single word of the Constitution. Period. Cheney should be prosecuted to treason and war crimes not be feted on Fake News to plug his BS argumentum ad nauseum.
Cheney: "And therefore, I think you're fully justified in setting up a terror surveillance program to be able to intercept the communications of people who are communicating with terrorists outside the United States, *and people inside the states; and to spy on which books they take out of the library; and taser anyone that wants free speech; and to wage psy-ops on the domestic media; and a few others things, etc., and so forth." (penguin scowl-face here)
*and spy on the personal lives of politicians (eg. Eliot Spitzer) who are inclined to point out the malfesence of the current administration.
Cheney is one that should be pissed on, [Deleted-Sitemonitor], and pissed on again. Know what I mean.
He's very clever in his speech. He says things like, "I think you can have a robust interrogation program with respect to high-value detainees."
What he really means is, "Damn right we tortured the hell out of those fuckers: we treated them like the vermin they are." But he makes it sound like philosophy, over tea. "I think you can have... "Like it's some abstract potential in Never Never Land.
He and Rumsfeld learned their lessions very well from Nixon et al, didn't they.
The Soviet Union henchmen had Pravda TV for propaganda. In America, the republicans have created Fox to spew their fascist propaganda.
Cheney is a hero in the boardrooms of Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater. His war for profit is a smashing success. Who can argue? Spending 300 MILLION dollars a day in Iraq is great for their shareholders, one being Mr Cheney. All Americans are guilty of war crimes until dick Cheney is put to trial.
"Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic"
cheney's conflating two meanings of the constitution here, to re-interpret a document that cannot be erased without a hell of a lot of shredders. there in we find the denial. Maybe he's protecting the constitution in that big safe of his. Now, if we could only protect the constitution from cheney...
Even Cheney couldn't think of a high moment in the last years. After pondering he comes up with 911?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaSOxiOwJms
Highest moment for him because that's when the SOB could use 911 as an excuse to do a 180 on his 1994 Iraq war position http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8MePwb6TEk since he now found himself in a position to steer no bid government Iraq war contracts to Halliburton and rank in 8 million in Halliburton stock increases as a result http://www.rawstory.com/news/2005/Cheneys_sto....
The aforementioned is offered up as evidence Exhibit A in Cheney's war crimes tribunal.
for providing that link.
I fervently hope that Cheney's own words will come back to haunt him in the future (and his afterlife in hell).
what is the most angering and depressing. This evil man's obvious "F*ck you" style, his lack of caring what anybody says or thinks, everything the administration has illegally done, or the simple fact that not ONE lawyer or judge in the country would even attempt to bring them to justice. At all. Not hear him? Lawyers said everything we did was okey dokey.
Concerned Canuck
Very well said. Obama is on record as saying that it would not be until his second administration that he would even think about going after the Bush administration for its misdeeds [i.e. if Obama and his Attorney General even believe that it would be warranted to go after Cheney and Bush] which is why Cheney apparently feels supremely confident for issuing his statements regarding American Exceptionalism.
I can't for the life of me figure out who this liar thinks he's fooling. Him and his ventriloquist dummy have been shown to be liars of the first magnitude and yet they both still tell the same lies as if people still believe them.
I think that is what angers me the most about these two, they are both lousy liars but they act like a pair of silver-tounged devils rather than the cheap hucksters that they are. Their legacy is set and it will not be Kind, Jr. week remembered for his thousand yard stare on 9/11, his disastrous "Mission Accomplished" stunt, "Heck uf-a job Brownie, and of course.... shoes. The big Dick will just be viewed as the evil troll behind the dummy, and there is absolutely nothing either one of these jackasses can do to change that fact.
WALLACE: "If the president during war decides to do something to protect the country, is it legal?"
CHENEY: "General proposition, I'd say yes. You need to be more specific than that."
Yes Dick,because once we get into specifics...what?
Let's face it-as far as you and King George are concerned,everything you do is legal,Constitution,THe Geneva Conventions and "reality" be damned.
Everyone in the Cheney administration will walk away free and clear on 20 Jan 09.
There will be not charges, arrests, etc.
/probably "off the table".
...to destroy the Constitution in order to save it.
Good god Amato, it's almost 2009 and you don't know what the Bush Doctrine is?
You write: "Cheney and his Band of Neocons lied this country into a war with Iraq as they created Bush's Doctrine. (Preemptive war.)"
NO. Pre-emtive war is when you know you are going to be attacked and you pre-empt it by going to war first. The Bush Doctrine is PREVENTIVE war: We attack a country to prevent them from having the capacity to do anything, ever. It is heinous and foolish and self-destructive. But it is NOT the same as preemtive war!
The last time the United States Congress declared war was against Nazi Germany.
Fuck "american exceptionalism". That evil philosophy is responsible for the deaths of millions of people around the world starting with the Natives down to the Iraqis. Dick Cheney and his kind will no longer be tolerated in the world of the 21st century of Global Multilateralism. I pray Obama will truly bring the change he promised and put an end to the madness.
..but a few minutes of Dick. Looking at him and listening to him LIE while hundreds of thousands have died because of him and millions more will soon be suffering mightily because of him, makes me gag.
But, I do think Dickie is not looking well. He's looking thin to me and wan - and his voice seems even more gruff and "trollish" than usual. Could it be that the old bod is really starting to completely fail?? Could it be that he's mortal after all? Or, will he simply melt into a puddle of green slime like the wicked bastard he is? I'd gladly click my heels together three times to hasten that process.
I don't want to ever hear about this fuckstain without the proper introductory description, WAR CRIMINAL.
They use the Constitution the same way they use the Bible, take a little here, take a little there, ignore what they don't like until they've lost the real message.
I'm still waiting for him to say "nah, nah, nah-nah nah, and fuck you democrats! I stole everything, so what ya' gonna do about it? Huh? Your damn right pussies, not a fucking thing! Hehehehehehehe......."
WALLACE: This is at the core of the controversies that I want to get to with you in a moment. If the president during war decides to do something to protect the country, is it legal?
CHENEY: General proposition, I'd say yes.
---------------
When the President does it, that means that it's not illegal.
Richard M. Nixon
Very revealing in my view was that Cheney appears to find the War Powers Act possibly unconstitutional because "no president has signed off on the War Powers Act." So the *president* gets to decide what acts of congress are and are not constitutional. What the hell do we have the Supreme Court for then? As Bush would say, "I find that very interesting..."
Put a bullet between his eyes he would look better and make more sense!
I wonder what the title of his book is going to be?
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