Part 2 of Gellman and Becker’s Cheney series strongly supports my Grand Unified Theory of Bush scandals, which posits 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.
In my view Kevin Drum sums up the key nugget of Cheney Part 2: all of the worst power grabs of the Bush administration, including but not restricted to torture (sorry, “cruel” treatment) came from the vice president’s office. It’s roughly analagous to Iago seconding a presidential ticket with Falstaff.
Otto Man
So Gonzales isn’t psychotic, just spineless. Good to know.
Rome Again
Seems to me I remember a whole LOT of people very unhappy when Bush picked Cheney to be on his ticket (before they were supposedly elected, naturally). Do you suppose the people who were up in arms about that continue to keep up with the things this man has done? Something tells me they probably haven’t a clue – that, for the most part, they’re watching entertainment instead.
Punchy
Holy fucking wow…
Explains a lot, actually.
rachel
More like Iago seconding Dogberry.
Tax Analyst
Well, it’s not hard to agree, Tim. From the moment he nominated himself for VP I’ve always felt Cheney was potentially the most dangerous half of the ticket, although I must admit that Dubyah has far exceeded my earlier expectations in that regard. To me it couldn’t have been clearer how much that nasty little bastard (Cheney) wanted Power. I still have this uneasy feeling about getting old Dick-o out of office – even at the end of his term in 2008…I don’t think this guy will leave any way but being physically dragged off…seriously…”What Constitution?”. Now I knew Dubyah was a feckless fool all along, but I did not conceive just how much damage he would do…maybe I thought somehow that Responsible Republicans (ha-ha) would not tumble for his most harmful follies…yeah, guess I wasn’t quite as smart as I thought there, huh? I’m trying to remember the Underground cartoon where the campaign aides were trying to keep the candidate from biting off the heads of small animals in public…they knew he was gonna do it, they just didn’t want it to get out. It might have been the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, or it might just have been another cartoon appearing in the same magazine issue as the Freaks. Anyway, I don’t have any trouble picturing Cheney in that scenario.
Otto Man
I’ve never been a fan of Rahm Emanuel, but you’ve got to like his moxie on this one. “You’re not part of the Executive Office, Mr. Cheney? Fine. Move your offices out of the White House and stop taking funds appropriated for the executive branch. Have fun in the yard.”
Tom Hilton
Jane Mayer’s New Yorker profile of Addington a year ago made all of this pretty clear (I wrote about it here; the profile itself is, unfortunately, no longer available online). We’re just filling in the details now.
ThymeZone
Cheney has spent his life being a serial liar and lunatic. There was no reason to think he’d be anything different, as Vice President.
If we didn’t have a flaccid press that exists mainly to give its priests the High Life in Washington DC and New York City, and could actually ask questions and follow questions, we might have had a chance to avoid some of these effects.
I personally think that the right wing power machine used George Bush as a front man to get Dick Cheney into the White House via the back door. Cheney is not electable to anything, obviously, but the grinning fool from Texas was.
Tax Analyst
It is interesting to parse the “vetting” process Cheney went through in 2000 for his VP nomination…I believe “None” would be an accurate description. He was IN CHARGE of vetting VP possibles…came back to Dubyah with palms upward…”couldn’t find anyone suitable”…next blink of the eye, it’s him…I remember being severely aghast at this…and I also recall reading nary a word or question about it from the assorted media types who are supposed to be paying attention to these things. Everybody sort of just rolled over and let it happen…but hey, Dick was a “Known Quantity”, right? Actually, I shouldn’t have been surprised…after all, what sort of “vetting” did Dubyah get before the GOP, with the media yawning comfortably and munching soft doggie kibble at it’s feet, decided he’d make a Jim-Dandy Commander-in-Chief?
Dreggas
I agree completely. I used to waffle on this one, wondering if Shrub was just a front man or even puppet. The more information that comes out the more the case is proven and that, in and of itself, is fucking scary.
Nancy Irving
Addington is even more shocking than Cheney, IMO. Addington is a lawyer, for Chrissake. You could (just possibly) make the claim that Cheney doesn’t understand the full implications of what he advocates. Addington knows.