Dick Cheney. I’m actually not kidding. The Miers-Gonzales-Drownie incompetence has Bush written all over it, but over time I have warmed up to he idea that our fratboy in chief truly believes his happy blather about compassion and whatnot. Rather than meaning harm, Bush merely lacks the critical thinking skill to see how far off the mark his policies usually send the country. Rather the truly evil policies such as torture, police state-like grabs for executive power, lunatic theories about unprovoked war against every country that ever sent us a belated birthday card, and shutting away government from oversight while stripping privacy from citizens always seem to trace back to the Veep’s office. Quite possibly the difference between our president and our veep is the difference between a guy who means well but fails and a guy who means ill and succeeds.
Reader Interactions
59Comments
Comments are closed.
Trackbacks
-
Balloon Juice: The Grand Unified Theory Of Bush Scandals
Link: Balloon Juice. Tim says Cheney is the one behind it all.
-
[…] . . . aptly described by Tim F.: Quite possibly the difference between our president and our veep is the difference between a guy who means well but fails and a guy who means ill and succeeds. […]
-
[…] Part 2 of Gellman and Becker’s Cheney series esentially expands on my Grand Unified Theory of Bush scandals, which says that the worst, most counterproductive and dumbest decisions of the Bush presidency all seem to start in Cheney’s office. As Steve Benen noted on reading part 1, even torture memos that everybody assumed “abu” Gonzales wrote actually came from Cheney fixer David Addington. […]
tballou
As tempting as it is to blame Cheney for all the evil done by this administration, Bush is equally at fault. He is a classic authoritarian conservative. He may not mean harm, but that is only because harm is irrelevant to him. All that matters is getting his way, satisfying his messianic vision of himself.
tballou
As tempting as it is to blame Cheney for all the evil done by this administration, Bush is equally at fault. He is a classic authoritarian conservative. He may not mean harm, but that is only because harm is irrelevant to him. All that matters is getting his way, satisfying his messianic vision of himself.
tballou
As tempting as it is to blame Cheney for all the evil done by this administration, Bush is equally at fault. He is a classic authoritarian conservative. He may not mean harm, but that is only because harm is irrelevant to him. All that matters is getting his way, satisfying his messianic vision of himself.
jg
Its wrong to call these people incompetent. Nothing has happened that they didn’t intend.
Fledermaus
Oh if only the
SultanCourt Jester knew what the vizir was up to.Horselover Fat
Bush is a sadist. Doncha recall his eyes lighting up whenever he talked about executing people – like in the 2000 debates.
Sorry, no “means well” pass for 43.
– Horselover
TC
I agree with each of tballou’s posts (except for the last one). If you listen to Bush’s rhetoric, it is as authoritarian and occasionally threatening as anything that comes out of Cheney’s mouth. He also has the black/white outlook of an alcoholic that would teach him to make total war on anyone he considers an enemy.
Tsulagi
Nope. Wish as you might, there is no retarded pony under the big pile of shit currently in the Oval Office.
Rome Again
I constantly vacillate on this issue, with my decision ranging between Bush is an idiot and Bush knows exactly what harm he is creating and enjoys it. I’ve come to the conclusion he’s only an idiot on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and sometimes on a weekend day. All other times, he knows exactly what his sinister motives are purposed for.
Redhand
Has there ever been a more vile, reptilian éminence grise in American politics than Dick Cheney? I can’t think of one, nor do I think we will ever see anyone like him again. Real presidents are usually smart enough to run the show on their own, and wouldn’t tolerate the overreaching of a creature like Cheney for five seconds. Our Frat Boy King, however, lacks the intelligence and interest to wield power properly. He has been only too happy to abdicate enormous patches of authority to a lawless megalomaniac who is accountable to no one.
Both of them ought to be impeached.
RLaing
Motives are often not well understand even by the person who has them, so we really have no choice but to go by actions, and whether or not the real-world outcomes of those actions could reasonably have been anticipated by the people responsible for them.
So, for example, while it is possible for the average blockhead on the street to imagine that you could disband the police force of a country and not get anarchy, it is inconceivable that the ‘professionals’ in charge of U.S. policy could genuinely hold the same inane idea. So if someone in Iraq loses his/her loved ones to sectarian violence, whether or not U.S. troops are directly implicated, they are still 100% correct to ‘blame America’, in the sense of holding U.S. officialdom responsible.
That said, anyone in Iraq suffereing such a loss would be wrong to hold the people of the U.S. responsible, since they, for the most part, do not control, do not understand, and are frequently not even aware of the policies of their government.
Rome Again
You know, if I were Bush and I asked Cheney to find a good candidate for VP and he came back and said he found one and that he thought he himself was the best person for the job, I would have known the jig was up.
But, apparently not our President, no, he can see nothing wrong with that scenario at all. Hmmmmmm, yeah, perhaps that was one of his most idiotic moments!
Tax Analyst
Rome – I think it was more like Cheney coming back from his “exhaustive” VP vetting search and reporting “Geez, Sir…I just can’t seem to find anyone qualilfied to fill the role – someone who can address all the policy issues that you and I know have to be dealt with (pause for effect to let that sink into Dubyah’s head)…I just don’t know where we could find such a person” (Dick now peers expectantly at Dubyah – an unspoken “We need and answer right now” gaze) “Uh…well…ummm…uh…Well, how about YOU, Dick? YOU know what we NEED after all, right?” “Well, Sir…if you really think it would be best…”
This guy wanted IN to the POWER in the worst way…and he got it, too.
Dug Jay
Rome Again says:
Of course, that is not at all what happened, even as much as nitwits such as Romey wishes it were and describes it as if it were fact. There is nothing so good as BDS especially when one is otherwise functionally impotent.
Justin
Just after Bush’s pretzel-choking incident, SNL had a great sketch where Tim Meadows and Jimmy Fallon are Secret Service guards standing outside the oval office. They hear a commotion inside, and Will Ferrel comes out as Bush, saying everything is all right, he just choked on a pretzel. Darryl Hammond comes out behind him as Cheney, wearing a wife beater, and tells Georgie to come back inside. Bush looks scared, but agrees. The agents try to ask Bush if there’s anything he wants to tell them, but he’s too scared to say anything.
What a prescient portrayal of the inner workings of the Bush administration.
teak111
Cheney is a CEO type, he wants control because he beleives that only he can make the correct decisions. But I’m curious about his motives. Is he really just trying to protect the country, is he working for Hallburton? I mean, methods are one thing, motive is another. Bush just wants everyone to worship the baby jesus and go along with what he says. Classis dry drunk.
dslak
But surely this is itself the fault of the people of the US, no? I’m not going all Ward Churchill here and saying that any American who gets killed by Muslim terrorists got what’s coming to ’em, but don’t we as American citizens have certain responsibilities regarding the actions of our government, or at least the actions of the people we put in power?
While it might be wrong for acts of violence to be carried out against the American people in retaliation for the destruction caused by our government’s policies, surely people are well within their rights to hold Americans responsible for such destruction. I would think that’s part of the point of having a republic, but of course failure is an orphan.
Dave
Tim. Duh!
Although I agree that Bush is equally at fault here, just for the fact that he’s enabled it.
Rome Again
Dream on, oh delusional one.
teak111
I guess I’m trying to say is Bush is clearly in over his head, clearly incompetant at being President, but Cheney is intelligent and very competent, but with little regard for checks and balances required for decent governance. He wants to run the whole show and run it his way, which is great as long as the stock keep going up. Do you all see cheney as a right-wing idealogue? I see him as a nasty corporate ceo sob, but not incompetent.
ThymeZone
Oh for God’s sake, do we have to put up with this lame-ass spoof?
The last time I looked, which was quite recently, three fourths of Americans think the country is on the wrong track, and Cheney’s approval rating was below 20.
Is this sideways “support” of Cheney supposed to be funny, or spoofalicious, or what? You really need to get some new material.
BIRDZILLA
What about all of BILL CLINTONS scandals?
Tim F.
Indeed, that is f*cking scary.
ThymeZone
Minor typo there, Bird.
Just helpin ya out.
Rusty Shackleford
Judging by the amount of vacation Dubya was taking I think Bush and Cheney figured Bush would be the “frontman” and Cheney would handle most of the work. Bush isn’t the hardest worker, by all accounts, and Cheney wants to do the work but doesn’t want to answer the questions. They figured they’d go together like peas and carrots – with Bush putting a compassionate face on the conservative policies Cheney wanted to impose. And then 9/11 occurred which cemented their arrangement.
Judging from Bush’s time in the oil bidness, he’s wasn’t very good at being a CEO. Dubya was good at using his father’s contacts to cover his ass, but in terms of actual success in business, well, he wasn’t.
Cheney spent most of his professional life in Washington. His time as CEO of Halliburton isn’t exactly the brightest moment in the company’s history. Cheney left the company in trouble because he failed to do due diligence on a major acquisition which saddled Halliburton with all sorts of legal problems. Cheney figured he’d pay the guys back through sweetheart no-bid contracts.
Both Bush and Cheney are pretty much done with their public lives. Cheney has no desire to do anything but enjoy his loot and play with his lesbian daughter’s out of wedlock child. Bush? What can he do besides retreat to his brush ranch and drink “near beer”?
But, most importantly, how will we have to wait until Jenna exposes her Bush for Playboy, a la “Ronald Reagan’s Renegade Daughter” Patti Davis?
Jake
There are two dicks in the White House. One of them is just more blatant about it.
Rome Again
Which one is in the oral oriface?
Jake
Jeff Gannon?
Tee hee hee.
Dreggas
Bush, just look how stretched out his lips look.
Bubblegum Tate
I remember reading an interview with Will Ferrell in which he said that the plan for most Oval Office sketches was going to be that Cheney would be sitting at the big desk doing all the work, while Bush was off to the side sitting at a folding card table, playing with action figures or something like that. I think they should’ve stuck to that plan.
TC
Teak111,
I think you’re way overestimating Cheney’s competence. If you go back as far as the Nixon administration to the present, you come up with nothing but nonstop bumbles masked by Cheney’s demeanor of gravitas.
From ousting Rockefeller from the Ford administration to opposing Martin Luther King Day and sanctions against South Africa as a congressman, to telling General Schwarzkopf that he ought to parachute a division into western Iraq to create a second front, to proposing to Bush that the best candidate for VP would be Cheney. And on to his time as VP: trying to instigate a war with China over Taiwan, helping Enron with the California energy crisis, getting recommendations from the Hart Commission on how to protect our country from terrorism – and then sitting on it for seven months. Instigating a war with Iraq without bothering to come up what to do afterward. Installing a “viceroy” in Iraq with an aim of creating a neoconservative paradise waving a flag like Israel’s. Telling Libby to out Valerie Plame.
On and on and on. A string of incompetence that’s even worse than Bush’s.
Teak111
Agree its hard to tell, and your list of Cheney items is impressive, but is he being incompetent or a calculating player in the issues. Where as Bush, through mostly his speaking and press conferences, appears to be unable to grasp issues and concepts and therefore can’t make or refuses to make good decisions. Its a interesting diachotomy. If Cheney were president, would I hate him because of his hard headed policies or because he’s an embassassment to the rest of the world?
jg
I don’t see that as incompetence. I see actions in furtherance of a goal.
Tulkinghorn
I am positively nostalgic for Clinton’s scandals. All of them teapot-sized tempests, which I remember fondly while I watch the Titanic slide under.
Apologies to all for the mixed metaphor. And for feeding the Birdzilla. Isn’t he cute, though?
RLaing
Telling Libby to out Valerie Plame may not have been incompetence, but a practical necessity to destroy an intelligence asset (Brewster Jennings) that was investigating issues of nuclear proliferation, and coming perhaps too close to the black market in nukes. Remember A. Q. Khan, the Pakistani scientist who ran a free market in nuclear weapons technology, without anybody minding? He wasn’t the only one turning a buck on it, you may be sure.
If so, then the negative image of an administration outing a CIA operative out of vindictiveness is the best spin on the move against Plame to be had.
Sibel Edmonds would doubtlessly have all kinds of fascinating things to say about this (she’s mentioned black market nukes), but the political establishment (Democrat and Republican) is pretty well united in shutting her up. Waxman made a big noise about how he was going to investigate, before he acquired the power to do so. Now that he has that power, he has nothing to say.
JL
Tim, Do you really think that one of them means well? I’m in awe of your naivity. On the other hand there are Doc’s that you can speak with and sort out those feelings.
Perry Como
Do you support Bush’s immigration position or do you hate America?
B!D!S! B!D!S! B!D!S!
wvng
I still have trouble juxtaposing the clear impressions of JOhn Dilulo and David Kuo (honest and good people of the faith based initiative) who both thought W to be genuine in his faith and in his “compassion”, with the asshole who clearly loves sticking his fingers in other people’s eyes just for the sheer joy of it. He is an authoritarian bully who enjoys belittling and hurting people – and he’s compassionate and kind? Dual personalities? Or just a psycopath who is skilled at fooling the gullible?
Perry Como
Hmm, that didn’t come out right. Take two:
BDS! BDS! BDS!
Pooh
Judging from Dug Jay and Birdzilla, as well as the extended absence of Senator Darrell, it’s like they aren’t even trying any more.
MikeF
Indeed. This is something I wrote quite a while ago on Kos.
What many people do not seem to understand is that Bushco is doing EXACTLY what they intend, which is to destroy the government in all but name by the time they leave. They are in fact frightenly competent at their real goal.
There are so many truly incompetent people and cronies in the bureacracy that the truly well meaning people who do work in government cannot keep the system working.
They are destroying the essential trust, “The consent of the governed”, in the government by its citizens without which the government can do nothing to stem the corporations rapacious greed and urge to control what they can.
You can see it in the poll results where people grade both parties as equally bad on corruption and trustworthiness. Sure those polls are slanted by the corporate-owned media, but just talking to people on both sides of the spectrum will illustrate the point that people are nearly at the point where they simply do not trust the govt to do ANYTHING right. Not even national defense now. No Nation-Building either, not even here in the “homeland”.
I wish I could say that the Democrats coming into power now will fix it, but there are so many corporate lickspittles among them and the fact that they totally cooperated with the Rethugs in redistricting where the politicians pick the voters instead of the voters picking them has brought me to the point that I no longer have confidence that enough good people can take over now at the verge and stop it.
When they are all gone, their corporate buddies will take them in and the government will be powerless to stop them, no matter who is in charge of the government. Deregulation has worked so well for the corporations. There are no tools left for the government to do anything to go after them or recover their ill-gotten gains, and even when there are, the Republemmings and Democraps have reduced the penalties to the point of the cost of doing business, and even when that happens, the corporations lawyers fight it out and end up not paying anyways.
Actually, as I write this, I realize I must go further. When Democrats did not stand up with McCain, Warner, and Graham to stop TORTURE, and then some even voted for it, I say that was the moment in history when the feeding tube was pulled from Democracy’s body. It is truly over now, as all future Presidents will claim this power in law, if not in fact.
The framers tried really hard to stop this experiment from going astray and they were so brilliant in that task that it did well for almost two hundred years before it went too far. They could not stop a COMPLETELY INTENTIONAL attempt to literally break the system forever. Eisenhower warned about the military industrial complex, and it has now performed the slowest motion coup in history. We are merely spectators, not even participants at this point.
God help us all.
Krista
Positively adorable. Although a little sad, though. That most recent effort was a pale shadow of some of his earlier efforts. Come on, BIRDZILLA, you can do it. Gain heart — there is still enough idiocy on both sides of the aisle from which you can draw your divine inspiration.
Rome Again
As long as they allow me to vote, I will. Even if my vote doesn’t count for much. While there is the tiniest thread of hope, I’ll hang on. If you want to declare the patient dead, by all means, get out of the hospital and head to the morgue, your patient is waiting there. Mine is still on life support and in need of blood transfusions. I’ll donate if you refuse to.
ThymeZone
Hang in there Rome! The patient is just having a rough time, he ain’t dead yet.
My view is that America is far too good an idea to get permanently ruined by the likes of Dickhead Cheney and George of the Jungle Bush.
DougJ
It’s a sad day for this blog when it requires 30 comments — and the appearance of Birdzilla — for someone to try to blame one Bush’s problems on Clinton.
People, you’re slipping. “It’s Clinton’s fault” should have been of the first 10 comments.
I go away for a few weeks and the whole place falls apart.
jake
But at least Bush is clean and sober now, thanks to the Bible.
This must be iced tea. Or perhaps ginger ale.
I’m not really surprised. Just really wishing Jan 2009 would arrive early.
RSA
Not quite. If it were BIRDZILLA, it would be “Its CLINTONS fault”, and if it were Tony it would be “It’s Defeatocrat Clinton’s fault!!!”
The Other Steve
Sad but true.
Pb
jake,
And note his mysterious morning ailment after his ‘cold drink’ last night. The press just can’t seem to figure this story out, maybe they should hire a college student to do some investigative reporting for them….
Bob In Pacifica
If Cheney can be the man behind the curtains that doesn’t mean that the man in front of the curtains doesn’t know what’s going on.
Interesting that the theory behind the Reagan Administration was that who was in control was settled on the way to the hospital after the son of a friend of the Bush family shot Ronnie.
PK
I don’t buy the argument that Bush means well but has been sort of led astray by Cheney. I have had not liked Bush from day one. Dislike turning into hatred (for what he has done to the country) over the years.
I have never understood how anyone could listen to this guy for 5 mins and not realize how incoherent and inept he is. Also evil! I don’t say this lightly. Remember Carla Fay Tucker? I followed the case closely, after seeing her interview on 60 mins and larry King. I felt she had changed and should not be executed for something she did 20 years earlier when she was a different person. Heck Bush himself claims to be born again! A lot of people felt the same way about Carla Fay. All sorts of people from different parts of the political spectrum (anti death penalty groups to right wing Christian groups)asked for clemency. He listened to no one! Does that sound familiar. He showed no mercy and did not grant clemency. Apparently his believes in redemption for only himself. Also Tucker Carlson later reported (I forget where) that he had mocked Carla-Fay begging for mercy.
Tell me if this is not an evil man than who is!
Just because he has not held a gun in his had and actually done the killing does not make him less culpable. He is resposible for the deaths of thousands in Iraq! Evil! Yes!
I have not been a reader of your blog for a long time but gather you were once a Bush supporter.
All these years I have been hearing from people how people like me were Bush haters, our opposition to Bush was nothing but treason.
I think you wrong about this one. It is easy to label Cheney as the evil manipulator because he fits the role perfectly. Cheney looks the part and of course plenty of evidence supports it. But don’t let George off so easy.
jg
?Como?
Jake
I’ll give them credit and file the story and the “cold drink” caption under intense sarcasm. I should check some European papers. To see how “Cold Drink” translates into German or French.
Tony J
Who? Me? I have Advanced Italics Syndrome and an NHS Doctor’s Note to go with it.
On the other hand, no, because in this case, regardless of what plans Cheney had when he chose himself for the VP slot, it’s El Residente who wakes up each and every morning with the power to call a stop to the whole thing – but he doesn’t. Whether it’s because he agrees with Cheney, or he’s scared of him, or both, or just that he doesn’t really care what Dick gets up to as long as he gets to play with the Presidential trainset, it doesn’t really matter. Sub-contracting the authority of the elected Head-of-State to his deputy is something El Residente has chosen to do, and he deserves both equal blame and a different brand of contempt.
It’s still Clinton’s fault, though. If he hadn’t been such a wimpy Defeatocrat and just held Monica’s head in place for a few seconds longer, there never would have been a famous blue dress, and the MSM wouldn’t be able to push the meme about America not wanting to suffer through another Presidential Impeachment.
See?
jrg
OMG That’s scary. Why is this not all over the front pages of the blogs?
Another photo here
I’ll give the AP props for pointing this one out. That’s a beer. Hopefully a non-alcoholic one.
jrg
Buckler Beer (non-alcoholic)
Thank God.