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Panetta on Cheney's Attack Warnings: Wishful Thinking?

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Although I normally take everything the CIA says with a very large grain of salt, I just don't think Leon Panetta's all that far from the truth. I think Dick Cheney would rather be right than see the country safe from harm:

WASHINGTON -- CIA Director Leon Panetta says former Vice President Dick Cheney's criticism of the Obama administration's approach to terrorism almost suggests "he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point."

Panetta told The New Yorker for an article in its June 22 issue that Cheney "smells some blood in the water" on the issue of national security.

Cheney has said in several interviews that he thinks Obama is making the U.S. less safe. He has been critical of Obama for ordering the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, halting enhanced interrogations of suspected terrorists and reversing other Bush administration initiatives he says helped to prevent attacks on the U.S.

Last month the former vice president offered a withering critique of Obama's policies and a defense of the Bush administration on the same day that Obama made a major speech about national security.

Panetta said of Cheney's remarks: "It's almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it's almost as if he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that's dangerous politics."



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66 comments

Preach it!

Let's see....

Elections in Lebanon
Speech in Cairo
Israel gets pushed like never before
Iran ERUPTS with populist protests

Obama is doing just fine!

He is failing on teh gays, health care, gitmo and afghanistan...but i can WAIT!

..and I'm growing impatient!

I hear you...Bill Maher said it pretty well

cheney is a f#cking ENEMY COMBATANT
of the United States.

)O(

Mon, 06/15/2009 - 10:17 — surfjac
..and I'm growing impatient!
______________________________________

I call mine Roddy.

No shit Leon.

Ya think?

if this idea came to Leon in a blinding flash of insight, or if it had to perculate up through that gray sponge in his skull these last 4 months before becoming a cohesive theory?

Come on, Leon! Good grief...this guy is the head cheese of the American intelligence community, for God's sake!

Lord help us....

Now Panetta's back-peddling on his original statement!

WTF is going on in this country?!!!

I'm sick to my stomach, disgusted & deeply ashamed of all these ball-less, spineless f'ing cowards!

Good God--it's disgusting!

Democrats need to grow a set...freakin' pansies!

that sociopathic megalomaniac to arrange for another attack -

just like they did with 9/11.

What; does anybody think that the Oligarchy has scruples?

Why is it that stating the obvious is treated as some sage epiphany?

Of course Dick Cheney wants the United States to be attacked under Obama's watch--nothing could be more obvious!

..that means the country will be so focused on whoever attacked us, we might ignore who made us less safe. It probably also means more money for the likes of Halliburton and KBR. There's a method to the man's madness just in case the eight years of the national nightmare called "the W administration" wasn't a strong enough clue.
The sooner that man is in jail, the safer we'll all be!

)O(

If we ever are attacked in the next few years, shouldn't chainey be arrested?

...

He should be arrested...period!

A gay man.
a sociopath.
a war criminal.
please add to the list of the "knowns" about him.

)O(

What about the known unknowns?

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

-Rumsfeld

)O(

Set that sucker up with a rap beat!

.

It is a meglomanical sociopath!

at the same level as being a sociopath and war criminal?

WTF? Or am I missing some kind of joke somewhere....

I think he's saying that Cheney has been in the closet all his life, which would explain his sociopathic tendencies. He obviously comes from the generation that thinks being gay is a crime.

because he's afraid to reveal too much of his true nature. Which is that of a greedy paranoid war-mongering evil bastard, who talks out of one side of his face so the other side doesn't know what he's saying. He is so desperate to keep all the money he's stolen and avoid punishment for all the lives he's taken with his war, that he lost control of his mouth for a few weeks. He's quite now, isn't he. Probably conferring with Rove for round two.

Cheney is gay?

"Not that there is anything wrong with it"

Mary Claire Cheney
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Cheney )

Obama has a spotless record on terrorism, and Cheney can't stand it.

Because Cheney's record certainly isn't spotless. anthrax and the largest terrorist attack in US history happened on his watch.

..is taking Terrorism seriously. I think he's reading PDB's not like the last guy and his buddy.

You should have heard Scarborough going off on Panetta this morning.

Of course Joe knows all things about all situations. Funny how he is an expert on just about everything. /snark/

Cheney blew his cover completely when he said that Richard Clark missed the warnings about Sept. 11. That was such a blatant attempt to cover his ass that he actually showed more of his ass with his attempt.

And whenever he takes off his hat.

...another 9/11 purely to keep his fat ass out of the Hague and for personal redemption.

And for eight years we let this rotten fucker do whatever he wanted.

Um, duh. Haven't most of us been saying this for months?

As the right-wing blather-o-sphere ramps up attacks on Panetta for daring to sully the ex-VP in any way, questioning his motives or patriotism, eventually making impotent calls for his resignation or firing be sure to note you probably won't be seeing the following words that preceded Panetta's claim: "it's almost as if"

trea·son:

1. Violation of allegiance toward one's country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one's country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies.

2. A betrayal of trust or confidence.

the legal definition has been changed.

Please. ♥

is classified

Dead-eye, Dickhead is the worst terrorist against America.

Cheney crossed the line of outing a CIA agent which by definition was an act of treason.
Do you really think hes going to be caught again? Maybe criminals normally get bolder when they feel they are above the law, he defiantly fits that profile, the problem is so many people are covering for him how much damage will be done before this circus is stopped.
By definition his public statements are protected hes done nothing wrong, and I do agree that the people in office need to appoint a prosecutor to go after the Republicans and Democrats responsible for looting and war crimes while in office.
Maybe then and only then will our government be able to start to 'move forward' like our President wants but I never want to forget the lessons learned from what happened in the past.

<

;]

and makes me hungry as well. :-)

Leon Panetta was Obama's 2nd horrible staffing choice, right after Emmanuel, and has proven himself to be the asshat that I've always known him to be.

Instead of cleaning house at the CIA and getting the scummy bastards OUT of the organization, Panetta jumped in the pool with them. He has done NOTHING to stop the abusive practices being used and is protecting CRIMINALS by not pursuing investigations and prosecutions.

I don't care if you're the janitor at some school. a soldier. or a CIA spook - if a superior tells you to do something unlawful, the ONLY moral and legal thing to do is say "no."

Panetta is George Tenet with a D after his name instead of an R.

Why, oh, why does dick cheney hate America?

Because we have no more money.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/15-0

Cheney is desperate for a terrorist attack because it will save his buttocks. He can then claim his torture kept us safe from 2001 up to
when Obama stopped torture.

What slime he is.

So, what? Who czres if Leon finally called the cowardly serial draft dodger out! Cheny is nothing but a lying piece os Shiite. He deserves only jail and I hope he can take his lying bitch of a daughter with him.

Cheney is probably hard at work right now seting up a terrorist attack with his pals at the Pentagon

... that our safety is virtually guaranteed because there is no f*cking way in hell he can manage to get that done now that he is out of power.

He will try, that is for sure, but at least... that also guarantees he will waste his last miserable years on this earth on that endeavour.

I think on the opposite that he is brilliant and evil man. Cheney managed to do all he wanted during his stay in office.

... I think he got away with so much sh*t because of his utter lack of morals, not because of his mental capabilities. Out of the VeePee office, Cheney to me is worthless... now that some people have little use for him.

Most people in this country tend to associate wealth with intelligence, which is not necessarily the case.

Or at least that is what I am trying to convince myself of so I can fall sleep at night knowing that Cheney is still walking free among the living...

a normal person: A psychopath will cross any line to achieve his goal. A normal person never even thinks about where the lines are, and if you point the psychos behavior out to them, they'll say, "Oh, no one would do that." That is what Cheney counted on. Now, the truth is out about him.

Cheeney is desperately afraid of being prosecuted for war crimes. Not by us, of course. We seem to lack the will that is evident in the actions of the brave citizens of, of all places, Iran! The young people of Iran will be held as heroes. Americans........ fat, self involved, uneducated, busy watching Ameruhcun Idol.

Personally I like to have a salt lick handy when being informed by the CIA.

"Although I normally take everything the CIA says with a very large grain of salt..."

larger than this?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons...

Of course this is what Cheney wants. It's what all re=Thugs want. Another Oklahoma City bombing would suffice. That's what they're working on.
*

He works for [Cargill] there! ;)

Far right conservatism thrives, indeed needs, terror and fear to survive with hate and division thrown in for good measure.

Tribalistic self-absorption -

The most predominant mentality in right-wing discourse finds expression in this form: "I am part of/was born into Group X, and Group X -- my group -- is better than all others yet treated so very unfairly." This claim persists -- indeed, is often intensified -- even when Group X is clearly the strongest, most privileged and most favored group. So intense is their need for self-victimization -- so inebriating is their self-absorption and so lacking are they in any capacity for empathy -- that, for all the noise and rhetoric, the arguments they make virtually always have this tribalistic self-absorption at its core.

from Glenn Greenwald

Just heard on the news Panetta is 'backing down' from remarks made about Cheney...

j h f c.............

are there ANY Democrats in this country who AREN'T afraid of Cheney and company??!!!! What a goddamned wuss! The Democrats really ARE the 'weaker' party!

You think the Rushthugliklans back down for any insidious horrific things they say about Democrats? No way.

Here's Letterman apologizing to Palin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/15/lett... You think Palin will apologize to Obama for saying he "paled around with terrorists"? with no regard for how his 2 little girls might feel hearing someone say that about that father? Don't hold your breath.

and he needs to be watched or detained until after September the 12th. He and the neothugs "know" that any terrorism between now and then will "prove them right."

He's probably in his spider hole in some undisclosed location trying to figure out how even though he is out of power he can get this nation attacked.

do NOT accept that hunting invitation!

Maybe Cheney, you know, learned a lesson from being asleep at the switch in 2001 and ignoring warnings about imminent terrorist attacks. And now he's just trying to make sure Obama doesn't repeat the greatest security blunder in our nations history. Heck, if I thought Cheney had a conscience I would suggest it's bothering him. Not likely, though.

66 comments

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